Italy in the thirteenth century

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ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

A SHORT HISTORY OF POLITICS, RELIGION, LITERATURE

AND ART IN THE TIMES OF INNOCENT III

ST. FRANCIS, NICCOLA PISANO

GIOTTO, AND DANTE

IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME I

ITALY IN THE
THIRTEENTH CENTURY

BY

HENRY DWIGHT SEDGWICK

Voi oredete

forse che siamo esperti d ' esto loco ;
ma noi siain peregrin, come voi siete.
PURG. II, 61-63.

VOLUME I

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY y 2

^re^ Cambrib0e

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HENRY DWIGHT SEDGWICK
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published November 1012

*'•'//, H'<^

TO

S. M. S.

PEEFACE

THE thirteenth century has always held its head high
among its fellows. Ernest Renan calls it " le plus
grand siecle du moyen age," and John Fiske "the
glorious century." Its predecessors, the eleventh and
twelfth, have their devotees and rightly, for one is
the morning twilight, the other the dawn, of our
modern civilization ; but in the thirteenth the sun is
high in heaven, Europe resounds with happy anima-
tion, the day's work has begun. Each country con-
tributes to the riches of the century : England brings
Magna Charta, the beginnings of Parliament, Bishop
Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and Simon of Montfort ;
France, the cathedrals of Paris, Rheims, and Amiens,
her university, her literature, her gentlemen advent-
urers, and St. Louis; the Iberian Peninsula adds
the culture of Moor and Jew at Cordova and Seville,
Alphonso the Wise of Castile, James of Aragon the
Conqueror, and St. Dominic ; Germany, her victories
over the heathen of the East, the Hanseatic towns,
Walther von der Vogelweide, Albertus Magnus, Ru-
dolph of Habsburg. But Italy shows more energy,
more productive power, more many-sided genius than
any of them ; no other country can produce a list of
men to match Innocent III, Frederick II, St. Fran-
cis, Ezzelino da Romano, Thomas Aquinas, Niccola
Pisano, Giotto, and Dante, nor matters of such
world- wide concern as the Papacy, the Holy Roman
Empire, or the Franciscan movement.

viii PREFACE

The history of Italy in this century is so crowded
with affairs of moment, and with memorable men,
original documents are so abundant, histories, bio-
graphies, monographs are so numerous, that it is dif-
ficult to present in mere outline a true picture of men
and events. Lack of agreement among scholars ag-
gravates this difficulty ; controversies are thick as
blackberries, and prickly as their thorns. In a book
such as this is, I have been obliged to state many
doubtful facts as if they were free from doubt, and
to omit many things of interest.

The reason that there is little uniformity as to
grammar and spelling in the Italian poetry that I
quote is that the editors of different poets have
adopted different systems, and I take the verses as
I find them in print without going on a laborious
quest of the original manuscripts ; in such original
manuscripts I should probably find still less uni-
formity. And as an excuse for the apparent patch-
work of the book, I plead the variety of matters
that I have put together, politics, secular and ecclesi'
astical, religion, literature, painting, sculpture, trade
guilds and other subjects not of a piece. I may add,
that I have introduced, so far as I could, the person-
ages of the Divina Cbmmedia in order that the
book may serve after a fashion as an historical in-
troduction to Dante ; that I have laid stress on those
matters that seem to me most interesting; that where
scholars are at odds I follow those whom I judge
most learned or wisest ; and that I have tried to
write without bias.

HENRY D WIGHT SEDGWICK.
NEW YORK, March 13, 1912.

CONTENTS

I. AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 1

II. INNOCENT III, THE PRIEST (11607-1216) .... 12

III. INNOCENT, THE PREACHER 24

IV. JOACHIM, THE PROPHET (11327-1202) 36

V. PAPAL JURISPRUDENCE 48

VI. INNOCENT, DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM (1198-1216) . . 60

VII. ST. FRANCIS (1182-1226) 74

VIII. THE FIRST DISCIPLES (1209-1226) 86

IX. THE EMPEROR FREDERICK II (1194-1250) .... 97
X. GREGORY IX AND FREDERICK II (1227-1230) . . 109

XI. PROVENQAL POETRY IN ITALY 131

XII. THE SICILIAN SCHOOL OF POETRY (1225-1266) . . 144

XIII. THE LOMBARD COMMUNES 162

XIV. BOLOGNA 182

XV. THE CONSTITUTION OF BOLOGNA 194

XVI. THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA 210

XVII. ON SOME UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS 227

XVIII. THE NOBLES OF THE NORTH (1230-1243) .... 245

XIX. EARLY ART 268

XX. PAINTING AND MOSAIC (1200-1250) 278

XXI. THE DECORATIVE ARTS (1200-1250) 289

XXII. INNOCENT IV (1243-1245) 302

XXIII. THE END OF FREDERICK'S LIFE (1245-1250) ... 315

XXIV. GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY .... . 338

x CONTENTS

> XXV. THE PROGRESS OF THE FRANCISCAN ORDER (1226-

1247) 369 V

XXVI. THE DISCIPLES OF JOACHIM (1247-1257) ... 371

XXVII. MANFRED (1250-1260) 387

XXVIII. TUSCANY (1200-1260) » . . 408

XXIX. FLORENCE . . 426

ILLUSTRATIONS

DANTE ALIGHIERI (photogravure)

From the bronze bust at Naples

Frontispiece

INNOCENT III
ST. FRANCIS
GREGORY IX
LADY HAWKING

Panel from Fountain at Perugia
S. GlMIGNANO

CATHEDRAL Modena

GARISENDA AND ASINELLI Bologna

ST. PAUL'S CLOISTER Rome

SAN LORENZO Rome

Sacro SpecOj Subiaco
Sacro Speco, Subiaco
Sacro Speco, Subiaco

Giovanni Pisano

Lanfrano

The Vassalletti

CLOISTER OF ST. JOHN
LATERAN

Rome

BAPTISTERY Parma

BASILICA OF ST. FRANCIS Assisi
LOWER CHURCH Assisi

CHURCH OF SANT ' ANTONIO Padua
MAP OF ITALY

The Vassalletti

12

74

110

150

174

188
192
290
294

298

Benedetto Antelami 320
338
350
358
440

ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH
CENTURY

CHAPTER I

AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

" Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere. "

Henry IV.

THE history of Italy in the thirteenth century is,
for us of European descent, the main current of the
world's history and full of matters of great moment
that barely allow themselves to be sketched in a
short book, much less to be defined in a few open-
ing sentences ; but for convenience' sake a sort of
finger post may be set up to show where our way
leads. We shall find at the opening of the century
a strong tendency in society to become ecclesiastical,
to cause church polity to take precedence of civil pol-
ity, to shape conduct and interpret human experience
in accordance with a religious view of life ; and then,
that this tendency, embodied in two very different
forms, the ecclesiastical organization and the mendi-
cant orders, abruptly reaching the summit of its
course, begins to weaken and fall away. We shall
also see the opposition to that sacerdotal tendency ;
both conscious, as it was on the part of the secular
order, and unconscious, as it was on the part of new
interests and new ideas. And, looking at the prospect
from another point of vision, we shall see the lusty

2 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

boyhood of our modern civilization, the early stir-
rings of new powers, the fresh leaven of new life at
work, and all the young efforts of a newer order to
throw off the hindrances and restraints imposed by
an older order.

Ecclesiastically, it is the story of the imperial pol-
ity of the Roman Church confronted by new religious
thought. Politically, it is the story of the downfall
of the mediaeval Empire. Economically, it is the story
of the struggles of agriculture, manufacture, and
trade to overcome the feudal system and such politi-
cal conceptions and institutions of the ancient world
as had survived the feudal system. In art and in lit-
erature, it is a tale of the birth of Italian genius, of
its christening, as it were, amid blessings showered
by Nature and the Spirit of the Roman Past, its
fairy godmothers. Taken all in all, it is a tale of
youth, hot and bold, overthrowing crabbed age. The
old order and the new measured strength in Eng-
land, France, and Germany, as well as in Italy ; but
in Italy the issue was presented most sharply, and
there the new ideas bore themselves most brilliantly
and won the greatest success.

At this time Italy was merely a name for the
Italian peninsula. There was no political unity ; even
the great bond of language was imperfect, as Italian
had emerged irregularly from dog Latin, and every
province, almost every town, spoke its own dialect.
In the valley of the river Po and its tributaries, a
succession of truculent, independent cities — Pavia,
Milan, Cremona, Piacenza, Bologna, and their sisters
— followed one another, with no bond except their

AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 3

common profession of allegiance to the Empire and
such treaties as they themselves chose to make with
one another. In the highlands and foothills all
along under the Alps, feudal barons maintained their
old dominion. The province of Tuscany was wholly
dismembered : Florence, Siena, Lucca, Pistoia, Pisa,
had become self-governing communes, each with its
patch of subject country roundabout. In the middle
of Italy were situate the provinces claimed by the
Church : a strip of territory along the Mediterranean
near Rome (known as St. Peter's Patrimony), the
duchy of Spoleto, now the province of Umbria, and
the region on the Adriatic from Ravenna to Ancona.
St. Peter's Patrimony was held by title immemorial,
and the other states had been bestowed on the Church
by Charlemagne, by his father Pippin, and by Louis
the Pious, at least so the traditions of the papal
chancery said. To the south lay the Norman king-
dom of southern Italy and Sicily. That kingdom
acknowledged the suzerainty of the Papacy, but no
imperial authority whatever; whereas the cities, as
well as the feudal barons, of Tuscany and of the
North fully acknowledged in theory their allegiance
to the Holy Roman Empire, and even the Papal
States admitted a vague shadow of imperial author-
ity.

The Holy Roman Empire was a most singular
political system. A German king, elected by Ger-
man princes and prelates, acquired by such election
the right to be crowned Emperor of the Roman
Empire, Romanorum Imperator, semper Augustus,
Mundi totius Dominus. Germany, Burgundy, and

4 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

all Italy, excepting the Norman kingdom, acknow-
ledged him as monarch ; Denmark, Poland, Bohemia,
Hungary, recognized him as suzerain ; even the King
of England acknowledged his precedence. This
amazing situation was the result of the tradition of
the Roman Empire working upon the imagination
of the young forces of mediaeval Europe.

At the end of the twelfth century the memory of
ancient Rome still bestrode the world like a Colos-
sus. Across the blackness of the dark ages men
discerned a vast outline of peace and order. Dimly
seen and vaguely apprehended, Imperial Rome
loomed up in superhuman majesty. Matched with
the ranged arches of Roman government the make-
shifts of feudalism were as lath and plaster. Roman
law shone with the light of a golden age. Latin lit-
erature looked the work of heroic beings ; Cicero's
rhetoric was revered as the embodiment of human
wisdom, and Virgil's verses were credited with a
deeper meaning than met the ear. In short, the
civilization of the ancient world was like the memory
of day to sailors sailing in a starless sea. This great
tradition was the bond that held the Empire together,
it was the principle of life that animated and main-
tained the cumbersome and ill-joined members in
one body politic. Nobody considered the question
of expediency. The Roman Empire continued to be,
as the Alps continued to lift their tops skyward or
the Po to seek peace with its confluents in the
Adriatic. Germany derived no benefit from her milit-
ary forays across the Alps, none from her precarious
sovereignty in the peninsula; Italy derived none

AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 5

from the spasmodic efforts of the Emperors to estab-
lish their authority ; but the great Roman tradition
had united them for better or worse, and no man
could entertain the idea of putting them asunder.

The Holy Roman Empire, however, was not the
only claimant to the traditions of ancient Rome.
Church and State were not then recognized as sep-
arate entities. There was no definite division of so-
ciety into lay and religions ; archbishops and bishops
were both civil and military personages, abbots were
soldiers. The Church performed great civil functions.
Christendom was a unity, not by virtue of civil soci-
ety, but because the new life of Christianity had
been poured into the old body of the Roman Empire.
The ecclesiastical constitution of society was better
contrived, and closer knit, than the lay constitution.
The organization of the Holy Roman Empire could
not compare with the organization of the Holy
Roman Church. Germany, Italy, and Burgundy
recognized the Emperor as their sovereign lord, but
they and all Latin Europe to boot bowed to the
Pope as the head of Christendom. It was the Chris-
tian religion, not civil interdependence, that held
Europe together. It is no wonder that the ecclesi-
astical tendency, in a society still raw and undevel-
oped, became strong and high aspiring.

The Roman Church was of divine origin ; there
was nobody to dispute that. " Thou art Peter, and
upon this rock I will build my church ; . . . and
I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of
heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth
shall be bound in heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt

6 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." " Super
aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis ; et conculabis leo-
nem et draconem. Thou shalt tread upon the lion
and the adder ; the young lion and the dragon shalt
thou trample under foot." And Peter, thus chosen
to found and maintain God's Church, had founded
it, not without divine direction, in Rome. There
lay his sacred bones and there stood the venerable
basilica that marked their resting-place. All Chris-
tendom knew that history. If the Roman conquest
of the world had been so marvellous that no man
could doubt that the Roman eagles had flown under
divine guidance, another fact in history was no less
marvellous, the conversion of the heathen Empire
to Christ. Had not the military glory been a mere
indirect means to this end ? Was not the universal
Empire but a carefully prepared chrysalis for the
universal Church? And when the wild barbarians
were shouting in triumph over the prostrate rem-
nants of the Roman Empire, had not the Roman
Church achieved a nobler conquest over them ? To
the more devout Italians there was no doubt on
these matters; and their beliefs were confirmed by
the few dim facts of history that raised themselves
above the flood of forgotten things. When Pope
Silvester cured the Emperor Constantine of leprosy
and baptized him in the great porphyry font that
stood in the baptistery of St. John Lateran, Con-
stantine in pious gratitude had bestowed upon Sil-
vester and his successors "the city of Rome, and all
the provinces, places, and cities of Italy and the
western regions " ; as might be seen (so men said)

AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 7

4

in the charter preserved in the Papal Chancery.
The Emperor Theodosius had bowed before the re-
buke of St. Ambrose, in token of the duty of mon-
archs to bow to the commands of the clergy. The
Emperor Charlemagne had received the insignia
of office, yes, the imperial office itself, from Pope
Leo. And Charlemagne, as well as his father, Pippin,
had granted the middle provinces of Italy to the
Holy See. But the devout Italian at the end of the
twelfth century did not rest his arguments on human
documents, even when those were charters granted
by the greatest Emperors, for all that is human is
susceptible of quibbling interpretation ; in the nature
of things, the head of the Church is the highest
authority on earth, he is God's vicegerent and his
commands are the utterance of God's will.

The Papacy and the Empire were rival heirs to
the mighty tradition of universal empire; they
could not lie down side by side in peace. The theory
of the gentle-minded, that the two powers, secular
and ecclesiastic, should walk hand in hand and do
God's will together, could not succeed. One empire
could not brook the double reign of pope and em-
peror. The eleventh century witnessed the cruel
struggle of Hildebrand with Henry IV, rendered
dramatically memorable at Canossa; the twelfth,
that between Alexander III and Frederick Bar-
barossa. Those who were present at the meeting be-
tween Barbarossa and Pope Alexander, under the
glorious portal of St. Mark's basilica in Venice,
might perhaps have supposed that the struggle be-
tween the Empire and the Papacy had been settled,

8 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

and that the treaty which adjusted the matters in
dispute — rights of the Empire, rights of the Papacy,
rights of the Lombard cities, rights of the Norman
Kingdom — would end all rivalries and animosities
between the two, at least as far as Italy was con-
cerned ; but they would have been mistaken.

Frederick Barbarossa loyally obeyed the treaty
he had agreed to, but he was not a man to submit
lightly to defeat. He looked ahead and hoped to
gain more for the Empire by diplomacy than he had
lost by the sword. At that time the King of Sicily
and southern Italy, The Kingdom as I shall call it
following the Italian custom, was William the Good,
who was childless. His aunt, Constance, the last
legitimate member of the conquering Norman house,
was next in succession. The Emperor proposed that
his son and heir, Henry, should marry Constance.
Their marriage would be of the greatest political
consequence. It would not only deprive the Papacy
of its strongest ally, but also by the union of The
Kingdom and the Empire would enclose the Papacy
within a ring of Hohenstaufen dominion, reduce it
to its proper place of subordination to the Empire,
and render it, as it had been in the good old days
of Frederick's predecessors, a subservient bishopric.
By means of a subservient Papacy the Empire would
force the rebellious Lombard cities to their knees,
and then it might look forward to swelling up to
the fulness of Charlemagne's boundaries, or even
reach out to Constantinople and beyond. King Wil-
liam had been an enemy to the Empire, but he con-
sented ; he probably thought that this Hohenstaufen

AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 9

marriage was the best if not the only way to keep
the crown in his family. Had the sturdy Pope, Alex-
ander III, who for twenty years maintained the con-
test against Barbarossa, been living, he would not
have sat quietly by while a project fraught with such
danger to the Papacy was being arranged; but
Alexander's immediate successors were not com-
petent to cope with the situation. The marriage took
place, and a death grapple with the House of Hohen-
staufen was the result.

In 1189 Prince Henry succeeded to the throne of
Sicily and southern Italy by right of his wife, Con-
stance, and in the following year to the imperial
dignity. He was then twenty-five years old. Of all
the brilliant house of Hohenstaufen, Henry VI pos-
sessed the greatest political capacity. He lacked the
nobility and magnanimity of his father, and he lacked
the versatility and breadth of mind that character-
ized his famous son, Frederick II; but had he lived
to the age that either of them did, he would have
left a greater empire and a greater name than they.
Cruel, thorough, inflexible in the pursuit of his ends,
he united the qualities of a practical politician, a far-
sighted statesman, and a competent if not a remark-
able soldier. He saw with greater clearness than
his father the possibilities that lay in the Sicilian
marriage, and went to work patiently and skilfully
to make them real.

In Germany by mingling policy and force he
brought to terms the rebellious Guelfs, the great
rivals of the House of Hohenstaufen. Peace in
Germany left his hands free to deal with his south-

10 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

ern kingdom, where his title was disputed. The
nobles, whose Norman blood and Italian prejudices
resented a German master, had raised Tancred, a
royal bastard, to the throne. Three campaigns were
necessary to establish Henry's authority. After
crushing the last outbreak, he erected a, wall of fear
round his throne. His cruelty was hideous. Some
of the rebels were blinded, some hanged, some
flayed alive, some roasted over a slow fire. Henry
accomplished his purpose; he was in no danger of
another revolt.

Securely seated on his Sicilian throne he asserted
his imperial authority to the north in total disregard
of papal claims. He created one of his followers
Duke of Spoleto, another Duke of Romagna and
the Marches ; he enf eoffed his brother, Philip Hohen-
staufen, with the marquisate of Tuscany. By these
measures all Italy south of the valley of the Po was
reduced to obedience ; and the Lombard cities might
safely be left to undo by internal dissensions all
that their confederate efforts had achieved against
Barbarossa. The Pope had neither spirit nor ability
to stir up opposition. The time was therefore ripe
for Henry to give rein to his ambitious plans for
conquest of the Greek Empire. Munitions of all
sorts — soldiers, sailors, transports, galleys of war
— were collected in the ports of Apulia and Sicily.
Henry's design was not devoid of pretexts. As King
of Sicily he had inherited an enmity of long stand-
ing with the Greek Empire. For a hundred years
the Normans of Italy had been fighting the Greeks.
They had driven the Greeks out of Apulia and

AN INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 11

Calabria, and Robert Guiscard had even set a pre-
cedent by crossing the Adriatic and invading Al-
bania. As Emperor, Henry had additional causes
for quarrel ; the Greek Emperor had joined the
Italian league against his father; and also at the
time of the crusades the Greeks had dealt treacher-
ously with the German crusaders. Pretexts, how-
ever, were of little consequence ; vaulting ambition
justified itself. His plans were well laid, his hopes
good. Had he lived he would no doubt have
achieved his goal; but a sudden fever cut short his
life in the full vigour of early manhood. He died at
the age of thirty-two, on September 28, 1197, leav-
ing his widow, Constance, and his son Frederick,
not yet three years old.

CHAPTER II

INNOCENT in, THE PRIEST (1160?-1216)

"Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church." — Matt,
xvi, 18.

IT is at this point that the first great figure of the
thirteenth century comes on the stage; on January
8, 1198, within four months from the death of
Henry VI, Cardinal Lothair was elected pope and
given the name Innocent III. Under him the Papacy
attained the full meridian of its greatness. The ideal
of the Church ruling an obedient world was never,
either before or after, so nearly attained. Society
appeared, at least superficially, to have received an
ecclesiastical character; Latin Christendom became
a kind of ecclesiastical monarchy. The good of such
a system was at its best under a high-minded pope
like Innocent ; and its evils were at their least, be-
cause the Church was better educated, better organ-
ized, better administered, and more concerned for
the good of its subjects than the secular govern-
ments.

Lothair came of a baronial family which possessed
estates at or near Segni and Anagni. These little
towns, separated by a narrow valley, lie opposite
each other on the rugged slopes of the mountains of
Latium, about forty miles to the southeast of Rome.
Lothair's father was of Lombard descent ; his mother
belonged to a Roman family of distinction. If we

Alinari, phot.

INNOCENT III
Sacro Speco, Subiaco

INNOCENT III, THE PRIEST 13

may speculate concerning the gifts of inheritance,
the son received from his father a high-spirited, im-
perious temper, and from his mother those traits of
political sagacity and dogged determination that
characterized the great Romans of classical times.
There are two rude portraits of him, done as seems
likely in his lifetime, that bring out these two dis-
tinct inheritances. One, a mosaic, now in the villa
Catena, near Poli, depicts a fierce, keen-eyed, hawk-
nosed, impetuous face, such as would befit a robber
noble ; the tiara and pallium produce the effect of
helmet and hauberk. One fancies that one sees in
this effigy a long line of fighting Lombards, whose
sole recreation was war and whose only art was
sculpture of savage beasts. The other portrait is a
fresco in one of the churches of the Sacro Speco at
Subiaco. This portrait, painted in an archaic, rather
Byzantine manner, presents the visage of a deep-
revolving, circumspect Roman, tenacious of purpose,
secret in counsel, used to attaining his ends by far-
reaching contrivance. And yet there is a certain re-
semblance between the two pictures ; both have a
round, smooth, almost childish, outline for the curve
of cheeks and chin, and a downward bend to the
corners of the mouth. One imagines that the two
artists were severally attracted by the two aspects of
Innocent's character, and only agreed as to certain
contours of the face.

His biographer, a contemporary, describes him
thus: "Pope Innocent III was a man of keen in-
tellect and tenacious memory, learned in theology
and in literature, eloquent with tongue and with pen,

14 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

skilled in singing and psalmody, of medium height
and handsome face, of a character midway between
niggardliness and prodigality, very generous in alms-
giving and hospitality, but in other respects very
close unless there was need of spending. He was
stern with rebels and the impenitent, but kind to
the lowly and the pious, strong and steadfast, high-
minded and subtle, a defender of the Faith, a foe to
heretics, stiff-necked in justice but Christian in
mercy, meek in prosperity, patient in adversity; of
a nature somewhat quick-tempered, but also quick
to forgive." And another contemporary, King James
of Aragon, says: "That Apostolic Pope Innocent
was the best of popes. For a hundred years before
the time that I am writing this book there had not
been so good a pope in all the Church of Rome, for
he was a good clerk in that sound learning that a
pope should have; he had a good natural sense, and
great knowledge of the things of this world." Even
Aimeric de Pegulhan, the troubadour of Toulouse,
although he was driven from his native land by the
Albigensian crusades, calls him "lo bos pap' Inno-
cens — the good Pope Innocent."

Destined for the Church, Lothair received the
best education in law and theology that Christian
Europe could give. He went to school in Rome, and
then attended the universities of Paris and Bologna.
On his return he was soon recognized to be a master
of canon law, and aided by powerful friends at the
papal court took a leading part in important ecclesi-
astical causes, and was made cardinal. In spite of a
temporary eclipse, during which he devoted himself

INNOCENT III, THE PKIEST 15

to literature, Lothair proved himself the most able
man in the Roman Curia, and on the death of Celest-
ine III his election was a foregone conclusion.

Innocent was above all things theocratic. He be-
lieved to the full in the political doctrines which the
great Hildebrand, or some one connected with the
Papal Chancery, had formulated a hundred years
before and which the Roman Curia had accepted as
logical inferences from the books of revealed religion
and the facts of history : The Church of Rome was
founded by God alone. The Roman pontiff alone is
of right called the universal pontiff. All princes
shall kiss his feet. No synod shall be deemed general
without his sanction. He has the right to install a
priest in any parish whatever. He has authority, if
need be, to transfer bishops from one see to another.
He alone has authority to depose bishops and to re-
instate them. His decree may be annulled by none,
but he of himself may annul the decrees of all. He
may be judged by no man. The more important
causes concerning any church whatever shall be re-
ferred to the Apostolic See. No man shall dare con-
demn any one who appeals to it. The Roman pontiff
has authority to depose emperors. He has authority
to release the subjects of the wicked from their alle-
giance. The Roman Church has never erred, and
according to Holy Writ never will err. No man shall
be deemed a Catholic who is not in accord with the
Roman Church.

In Innocent's time such ideas were not without
justification. The organization of all Europe as one
civil state was an idle fancy; the clumsy imperial

16 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

union of Germany, Burgundy, and Italy was hardly
more than a name ; nothing but the mighty Roman
tradition could give a decent plausibility to its bald
pretense of being the continuation of the Caesarian
Empire. Whatever power it had beyond the magic
of a name was due to the support given by the feudal
system which had sprung up on the ruins of the
Carlovingian Empire, and the feudal system had
long since outlived its usefulness. In Italy at its
best it had been capable of but very feeble social
efficiency, and now that the trading cities had grown
strong and wealth had multiplied, it had degenerated
into a mere network of baronial privileges that
hampered merchants, artisans, and farmers. On the
other hand, the spirit of nationality was in its infancy ;
the authority of kings depended far more on their
personal abilities and resources than on national
sentiment or national wealth. Patriotism, — the senti-
ment of affection, loyalty, and dependence, towards
something greater than oneself, — where it existed,
was for a town, a family, an order, or a liege lord.
Between the decrepit feudal system and the new
order of independent nations yet to come, the Church
found her opportunity. Ecclesiastical patriotism,
fostered by the celibacy of the clergy, by the pride,
the privileges, the wealth of the sacerdotal order, was
at the flood. The Papacy stood erect on the founda-
tions laid by Hildebrand and the reformers of Cluny ;
it had been strengthened by St. Bernard and Alex-
ander III, by martyrs and missionaries; it was but-
tressed by the monastic orders of Chartreuse and
Citeaux. It had indeed, during the pontificate of

INNOCENT III, THE PRIEST 17

weak popes, been brought low by the energy and
vigour of Henry VI; for in that unstable and con-
fused period of society a strong individuality obtained
its fullest effectiveness. Now, however, the imperial
office was vacant, the succession was disputed, and
on the papal throne sat a man of political genius
and tireless activity, who was determined to establish,
so far as might be possible, an ecclesiastical mon-
archy over Christendom.

Innocent recognized no dividing line between re-
ligion and theology, nor between theology and ec-
clesiastical affairs, and none between the Church and
secular politics. Religion entered into and permeated
all life as wine mingles with water. The priest, the
scholar, the canon lawyer were not to be set apart
from the ordinary concerns of men ; rather, it be-
longed to them to be in the midst of affairs and to
guide. The ecclesiastical organization of society was
a necessary deduction from the very fact that God
had created the world, and man in His own image.
The conception of the State apart from the Church
was unthought of and unthinkable. The Church was
a divinely appointed means to accomplish God's will
on earth; the Bible was the revelation of God's will,
not merely for a certain class of men, nor for certain sea-
sons and places, but for all men at all times. God's will,
however, was not legible to all who could read. The
words of the Bible could not always be literally ac-
cepted, they were fraught with inner meanings, often
they were mere symbols ; and those symbols and inner
meanings were to be interpreted by theologians and
canonists. It was obvious that if God's will was to be

18 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

done, secular rulers, military and civil, must be guided
and governed by the interpreters. Parts of the Bible,
indeed, needed no interpretation, they were written
large for all the world to read. Christ had established
the Church ; He had set Peter at the head of it to
be His representative on earth, and He gave to Pe-
ter certain tremendous powers. The popes were
Peter's successors, charged with his duties and armed
with his prerogatives. The duty and responsibility
of the Church were absolute : " Peter, feed my sheep ";
and so the power of the Church must be absolute.
All this was obvious ; no man could plead ignor-
ance as excuse for disobedience.

Such and similar ideas rendered the theory that
the priesthood should guide and govern well-nigh
axiomatic, at least for persons favourably disposed
toward the priesthood; more particularly as the
theory was confirmed by the fact that the upper
priesthood was far better educated than the common
run of barons. And these ideas marked the course
to be taken by the Roman pontiff and members of
the Curia. As head of the ecclesiastical monarchy,
Innocent, both in matters of administration and of
jurisprudence, was to follow the imperial principles
laid down by Hildebrand ; and in the exercise of his
other function, as teacher, it was incumbent upon
him to expound the fundamental constitution of the
Church (which indeed was rather a political than a
religious matter), and also to justify and render easy
of comprehension all that the Church was and all
that she did ; for example, her liturgy and ritual.
By seeing what Innocent did we shall learn the po-

INNOCENT III, THE PRIEST 19

litical character of the Church, and by giving heed
to what Innocent said we shall better understand
what the Church, as a sacerdotal institution, meant ;
for he summed up in himself the master qualities of
the Church. He might almost say, "L'Eglise, c'est
moi, — I am the Church of Borne," so thoroughly
had he absorbed its spirit, so admirably did he un-
derstand and feel its aims, ambitions, and beliefs.
For him, as much as for Hildebrand or for Thomas
Becket, the head of the Church was the guide of con-
duct, the expounder of revealed truth, the guardian
of ritual, the rightful director of the conscience of
Europe and, through the conscience, of the actions
of Europe, a lord of lords, a king of kings.

We must not hope to find in the official exposi-
tion of a mighty corporate body the zeal and heat of
youth; on the contrary, we shall see the delineation
of ideas and practices that had become cold and
formal. Innocent does not describe growth and high
strivings, but a constitution, a mechanism, that is
metallic and fixed. During the preceding hundred
years the religious spirit of the Church had dwindled.
The enthusiasm that carried Godfrey of Bouillon
in triumph to the Holy Sepulchre had ebbed away;
the passion of Cluny and St. Bernard had lost its
fire ; the pulse of religious idealism beat all too tem-
perately. The Church had drifted from her high
ideal state, had let her soul starve, and was little
more than an ecclesiastical organism, animated, un-
consciously, instinctively, by a vast ambition to
sacerdotalize the whole fabric, social and political,
of European civilization.

20 ITALY IN THE THIKTEENTH CENTUKY

In his treatise, De Contemptu Mundi, Innocent
sets forth the old ascetic ideas which the Church,
in the teeth of her ambition and her worldliness,
continued to profess. He dwells upon the wretched
condition of man at birth, the vile clay of which he is
compounded, the baseness of our physical functions,
the weariness of old age, the burden of labour, the
worries of both rich and poor, the pitiful state of
celibates and married men, and so on through the
list of evils that old men mumbled in decadent monas-
teries. " The poor," he says, "are oppressed by want,
tormented by hunger, thirst, cold, and nakedness ;
they degenerate, their bodily powers fail, they are
scorned and confounded ! Oh, wretched plight of
the beggar! If he seeks help, he is overcome by
shame, if he does not, he wastes away in want, and
in the end need forces him to beg. He cries out that
God is unjust and has not made a fair division, he
complains of his neighbour because he does not fill
all his wants. He is angry, he grumbles, he curses.
Hear what the Wise Man says : * It is better to die
than to be in want ' (Eccles. XL, 29), and ' The poor
is hated even of his own neighbour' (Prov. xiv, 20)."
Yet Innocent had hardly uttered these monastic
platitudes, when a young man of Assisi discovered
in Lady Poverty a glorious vision of delight, and
was on his knees to her, exultantly singing songs in
her honour, for she, he said, taketh her lover by
the hand and leadeth him near unto God. In the
same treatise there are chapters on Hell, which are
little more than an exposition of pains and penalties
in a penal code ; no one would dream that from such

INNOCENT III, THE PRIEST 21

conceptions — from this rock of criminal jurisprud-
encej smitten by the rod of genius — the poetry of
the Inferno would gush forth. But between Inno-
cent's dry, legal chapters, and the immortal cantos
of Dante, the whole spiritual life of the thirteenth
century intervenes.

Innocent also wrote a treatise on The Sacred
Mystery of the Altar, the special purpose of which
was to explain how ecclesiastical ritual is an alle-
gorical presentation of facts and doctrines contained
in the Bible. The first book concerns itself with
vestments and ornaments, and their meanings; the
other books deal with the respective duties of officiat-
ing priests, of deacons and subdeacons, and with the
several observances prescribed for the celebration of
the mass. It is hard for us to appreciate how com-
pletely churchmen regarded the Bible as the rock
on which all matters ecclesiastical were founded, and
therefore I shall quote certain passages from this
treatise ; for example, those that concern the read-
ing of the epistle and the gospel. Without the help
of Innocent's explanations most of us would discover
little in the rubrics for the ordinary and canon of
the mass, except a pagan or a Hebraic heritage of
pontifical and religious ritual.

In the celebration of the mass the epistle (which
includes readings from the Old Testament) is read
before the gospel. The explanation is that the epistle
represents the law, which Moses gave to the Jews,
and so precedes the gospel of Christ. When it is
time for the gospel, the deacon carrying the gospel
goes to the reading-desk followed by the subdeacon.

22 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY (

The deacon goes first because he is the teacher ; the
subdeacon follows for the singular reason that the
Lord commanded, " Thou shalt not muzzle the ox
when he treadeth out the corn." The deacon pro-
ceeds in silence because, when the Lord sent his
disciples to teach, He commanded, " Ye shall salute
no man " ; and then he mounts the reading-desk by
one stairway whereas the subdeacon goes up by the
other stairway, in order to mark the difference in
their ways of profiting by the reading, for the dea-
con increases in knowledge by teaching and the sub-
deacon by learning. But on the return from the
reading-desk they both go down by the same stair-
way, this time the subdeacon preceding and carrying
the gospel; by his patient listening the subdeacon
has deserved this reward, because, as the Lord says,
"He that endureth to the end shall be saved." Or,
another interpretation may be held: the deacon is
the teacher, and the subdeacon is the doer, of good
works, and as teaching is not sufficient without
works, a joining of the two is necessary, and there-
fore both go down by the stairway that the doer
of works went up. Or, another explanation of the
reason why the deacon goes up one way and goes
down another may be held : he takes first one way
and then a different way, because the apostles preached
first to the Jews and afterwards to the Gentiles.

In like manner the movements of the officiating
priest, his sitting down and his standing up, his
shifting his position at the altar, are explained as
a sort of interpretation by dumb show of certain
great facts and teachings in the Bible. All this, both

INNOCENT III, THE PEIEST 23

ceremony and interpretation, is remote from most
of us, but we cannot understand the history of this
time unless we realize that for those men the Bible
was the encyclopaedia of truth. Texts that we lightly
pass by are for them like axioms in Euclid. Start
from any one of them and follow the gleam of ortho-
dox interpretation and the Christian will travel from
truth to truth. To Peter Bell the yellow primrose
by the river brim is nothing more than a yellow
primrose, but to the eye of the poet the yellow prim-
rose is radiant with the divine presence.

CHAPTER III

INNOCENT, THE PREACHER
" Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me ? Feed my sheep." — John xxi, 17.

IN the way set forth in the foregoing chapter all the
forms in the celebration of the mass are surveyed,
explained, and justified. It isohvious that the writer
finds an established practice and seeks to justify it,
not because there has been attack and dissent, but
for the greater edification of the congregation and
for the general solidification of the ecclesiastical
fabric. Even for the sympathetic reader it is hard
to see the close application of the texts cited; but
one must remember that those generations accepted
the doctrine of an allegorical interpretation of the
words of God as set forth in the Vulgate, and be-
lieved that every text was packed with spiritual
meanings. The significance of it all for us lies in the
spirit of freedom that pervades this doctrinal exe-
gesis. Interpretation was free, as Innocent's treatise
shows ; its freedom was secure because there were
four kinds of interpretation, and of the four kinds
not one had been fettered or cramped by authority.
Innocent explains them in his treatise On the Four
Kinds of Marriage : " Holy Writ teaches us that
there are four kinds of marriage according to the
four theological interpretations — historical, alle^
gorical, tropological, and anagogical. The first kind

INNOCENT, THE PREACHER 25

is that between a man and his wife, the second be-
tween Christ and Holy Church, the third between
God and the just soul, and the fourth between the
Word and human nature. Of the first marriage Pro-
toplasmus (Adam) said, ' Therefore shall a man leave
his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his
wife, and they shall be one flesh.' Of the second
marriage the angel of the Apocalypse said to John,
' Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's
wife' (Rev. xxi, 9). Of the third the Lord says by
the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, ' I will betroth thee
unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in
lovingkindness and in mercies ' (Hosea n, 19). Of
the fourth marriage the Spouse says in the song of
Solomon, ' Go forth, 0 ye daughters of Zion, and
behold King Solomon with the crown wherewith his
mother crowned him in the day of his espousals'
(Song of Sol. in, 11)."

These passages suffice to show how even the sacer-
dotal mind, trained in canonical exegesis, could start
pilgrim-like from any random text in the Bible, and,
taking a staff tipped with imagination and sandals
winged with poetry, could follow what path of reason-
ing it pleased. The pilgrim's road, to be sure, in
the explanation of the rites of the mass, was straight
because the pilgrim knew exactly the point he wished
to arrive at. But the individual mind, with these four
winged steeds, history, allegory, trope, and anagoge,
hitched to its car, could soar aloft in the empyrean
or roll over the solid earth, as it chose. It was not
till rebellion frightened the ecclesiastical hierarchy
with the prospect of obedience refused, reverence

26 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

denied, churches abandoned, offerings neglected,
and taxes unpaid, that rigidity of belief closed in
like a contracting cage upon the faithful.

Innocent's attitude towards the Bible is not so
exalted as that of the earlier generations of Cluny,
when men accepted Holy Writ emotionally and felt
a divine thrill from contact with God's revealed self,
and indeed his interpretations of the holy texts are
rather dry ; but even in his day the Church let fancy
loose (as we shall see in the case of Abbot Joachim
of the Flower), and every man, so long as he did not
infringe the accepted doctrine of the Trinity or the
canonical interpretation of the creed, might take any
text and discover therein the light that would illu-
mine all the world for him. Imagination was not
banished, poetry was not forbidden> individuality of
understanding and of need was not denied and dis-
owned ; in fact, the Bible, as a sort of divine con-
stitution, could be interpreted to meet the criticism
of every new accession of knowledge and the needs
of every new generation. The Church had become
sacerdotal, political, worldly, but in this respect she
still encouraged the liberty of the soul to interpret
truth for itself.

Nevertheless, in spite of this liberty, the inevitable
result of the Church's policy to sacerdotalize the
social fabric of Europe was to secularize the Church,
to cause the Church to do as the world does, and
therefore to stir up to unfriendliness and hostility
those devout souls for whom the Church must stand
in opposition to the world or forfeit their loyalty.

But it would be unfair to assume that the Church,

INNOCENT, THE PREACHER 27

though worldly-minded, was indifferent to conduct.
The Church was conscious that she was the guardian
of morals and was not unmindful of her task ; but
her solicitude for right conduct has been thrown into
the shade by the more brilliant success of her politi-
cal ambitions. The sermons that Innocent has left
show how little time and effort he could spare to
foster personal righteousness. " I am not suffered,"
he says, " to contemplate, nor even to stop to take
breath ; I am so given over to others, that I am al-
most taken away from myself. But that I may not,
through solicitude for things temporal which in the
exigency of these evil times weigh heavily upon me,
altogether neglect the care of things spiritual (which
is the more incumbent upon me owing to my duty
of apostolic service), I have prepared certain sermons
for the clergy and the people . . ."

These sermons, to the modern reader, are dry as
remainder biscuit, barren collections of texts strung
on fantastic threads of sacerdotal doctrine; the
preacher weaves the Biblical passages together, like
a devout man nobly striving to make ropes of sand.

His preaching shows how scholastic influences had
turned the Bible from a book of emotional and ethi-
cal truth into a book of scientific truth, and how a
vast and minute ecclesiastical polity was hardening
and drying the living tissue of the great religious
organism. But, perhaps, Innocent selected for pre-
servation those sermons that seemed to him most
creditable, that bore the fullest testimony to his skill
in gleaning difficult texts and threshing their mean-
ing out. Other discourses of his would have shown,

28 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

no doubt, the same good sense in ethics that marks
his political actions and his judicial decisions, and
perhaps a more evangelical Christianity. Of his hor-
tatory manner there are some specimens in the small
collection of sermons that has come down to us.

On a Good Friday he preached upon the text,
" Whom will ye that I release unto you ? Barabbas,
or Jesus which is called Christ ? " ". . . Now, dear
friends, why do I discuss Pilate's question and the
Jews' answer with such great interest ? For this rea-
son, that I wish to put a question like that question ;
for that question was put to the Jews in order that
my question should be put to Christians. But as
there are among Christians both good and bad, in
this sermon I do not put the question to the good,
but rather to those who are not good, whom the
Psalmist calls the sons of men. Therefore before
them do I exhibit two things, Sin and Christ. Say,
therefore, ye sons of men, which of the twain do ye
choose that I shall release unto you, Sin or Christ,
Good or Evil ? ... 0 ye sons of men, why do ye
hesitate, why do ye not make haste to answer? Why,
indeed, except that ye are sons of men. Are ye not
those of whom it is written : ' 0 ye sons of men, how
long will ye turn my glory into shame ? How long
will ye love vanity and seek after leasing ?''' And
then the preacher goes on, in the very plainest lan-
guage to attack the sins of the flesh.

And, again, at the service of the dedication of an
altar, Innocent preached upon the text, "Know ye
not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?"
(1 Cor. vi, 19). " If ye desire really to take part in

INNOCENT, THE PREACHER 29

this solemnity to which ye have come, ye must exert
yourselves so that whatever rites are performed in
the consecration of this temple shall find their ful-
filment in us. ' For the temple of God is holy, which
temple ye are ' (1 Cor. in, 17). . . . Let us therefore
dedicate the temple of our body in abstinence, that
it may be purified from base appetites; let it be dedi-
cated in continence, let it be cleansed from sins of
the flesh. . . . Give heed, oh, my brethren, my
children, how grievous a sin it is to violate the tem-
ple of the Holy Ghost."

In like manner here and there in random places
he lets the glint of his spirit shine through the bushel
under which it is hid. "Alleluia (Praise ye Jehovah),"
he says, " signifies the ineffable joy of angels and men
rejoicing in eternal bliss. That bliss is to praise God
forever. We, poor creatures of this present life, in
no wise deserve to have this unspeakable joy; but
tasting it beforehand in hope, we hunger and thirst
for what we have tasted until hope shall be changed
into substance and faith into vision. Wherefore the
Hebrew word remains not translated, so that a for-
eign word, a kind of pilgrim word, may suggest
rather than express that this joy does not belong to
this life, but passes through it like a pilgrim."

And again, in a description of the house of grace,
he says : " In the house of grace faith is the founda-
tion, charity the roof, obedience the door, humility
the floor, justice, fortitude, prudence, and temper-
ance are the four walls, and the windows are
good cheer, joy, compassion, and generosity. This
is the house of which God speaks: 'If a man love

30 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

me, he will keep my words : and my Father will
love him, and we will come unto him, and make our
abode with him/ >:

Except for such random escapes here and there,
Innocent's tenderer side has been hidden by history;
and there is no trace, I believe, of any woman's in-
fluence in his life, of such a friend as might have
been to this solitary, sacerdotal spirit what Monica
was to Augustine, what Scholastica was to Benedict,
or Clare to Francis. The only demonstration of a
need of feminine sympathy is a hymn to the Virgin ;
and one is left to conjecture whether this demon-
stration is real or conventional. Many and many a
lonely priest and monk cherished in his heart of
hearts a passionate devotion for this ideal of maid
and mother ; and Innocent, too, very likely, felt the
great emotional impulse of her worship. Into the
monk's cell and into the prelate's palace she shed
her light like the full-orbed moon, "pale for too
much shining " ; she, the Queen of Heaven, the
Mother of God, cold with the frosty radiance of
maidenhood and yet tender with more than a mother's
tenderness and compassionate with more than a
mother's compassion. His poor Latin verses, like the
syllables of a child, tell perhaps more than they say :

Ave mundi spes Maria,
Ave mitis, ave pia,
Ave charitate plena,

Virgo dulcis et serena.
Sancta parens Jesu Christ!,
Electa sola fuisti.

Esse mater sine viro
Et lactare modo miro.
Angelorum imperatrix 1

INNOCENT, THE PREACHEK 31

But if the mediaeval records have buried under
their ashes his tenderer side, they portray his jus-
tice, his tolerance, his kindness, and his high pur-
poses. He permitted the Greek schismatics in south-
ern Italy to use their own rites ; he decreed that no
man should try to convert Jews by force, or lay vio-
lent hands on them or their goods without lawful
warrant from the podesta of the town ; he strove
valiantly to reform abuses. His biographer says :
" Among all evils he hated venality with a special
hatred, and considered deeply how he could eradi-
cate it from the Roman Church. Immediately upon
his consecration he issued an edict that none of the
officials of the Curia should exact any fee [except
the scriveners and copyists, and for them he fixed
a tariff], enjoining all to perform their duties for
nothing ; but that they might accept a gratuity vol-
untarily offered. He removed the doorkeepers from
the notarial chambers, so that access to them should
be perfectly free, and he banished the money-changers
from the courts of the Lateran Palace." He built
the hospital of San Spirito for sick folk and pau-
pers, on the street beside the Tiber on the way to
St. Peter's, and richly endowed it; but he enter-
tained no foolish notions of a virtue in indiscrimi-
nate charity. He laid down four principles for alms-
giving : the motive should be love, the purpose to
attain Heaven, the manner cheerful, and the method
"according to rules." He was simple in his personal *
habits, and in order to set a good example gave up
his dishes of gold and silver for others of glass and
wood, and exchanged his costly furs for sheepskin.

32 ITALY IN THE THIKTEENTH CENTURY

His virtues, however, were not primarily Christian
but Roman ; he had the resolute courage and the
steadfast ambition of the old Roman senators, of
whom he was a worthy successor. He, too, would
have bought at a high price the field of Cannae the
day after the great defeat, or have sent Regulus
back to captivity. And he strove to make the title,
a Roman Catholic, as stout a protection as Civis
Romanus in the days of Trajan : " I have vowed a
vow," he writes, "from which neither life nor death
can sever me, to love those who with pure heart,
clean conscience, and faith unfeigned, are loyal to
the Church, and to defend them against the malig-
nant insolence of the oppressor with the shield of
the Apostolic Protection."

If Innocent tainted his religion with sacerdotal
and political alloy, he also ennobled his political and
sacerdotal views with a religious purpose. His inau-
gural sermon makes this plain. It was preached
upon the text : " Who then is that faithful and wise
steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his
household, to give them their portion of meat in
due season?"

" The steward must be faithful and wise — faith-
ful to give the household their portion of meat and
wise to give it in due season. The lord of the par-
able is God, the household is His Church. The Lord
Himself established His church on the Apostolic See
so that no power, however audacious, could prevail
against it. 'Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will
build my Church ; and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it.' I am the steward. Oh, may I be

INNOCENT, THE PREACHER 33

faithful and wise that I shall give them of the house-
hold meat in due season ! Three things above all
doth God require of me : Faith in my heart, Wis-
dom in my actions, Meat from my lips. Without
faith it is impossible to please God, and unless I am
steadfast in the Faith, how can I confirm others in
the Faith ? That duty pertaineth in especial to my
office; the Lord Himself protesteth — ' Peter, I have
prayed for thee that thy faith fail not : and when
thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.' There-
fore the faith of the Apostolic See has never failed
in any troubles, but has remained whole and un-
shaken. The grant to Peter subsists in its integrity.
So much is faith essential to me that although in
other sins I have God only for judge, in this one sin
against the Faith I may be judged by the Church.
I believe, indeed ; I most surely believe in the Cath-
olic creed, in confidence that my faith will save me.

" So now you see who is the steward placed over
the household, the vicar of Jesus Christ, the succes-
sor of Peter, intermediate between God and man, this
side of God, but beyond man. This steward judges
all men, but is judged of none. From him to whom
more is committed, more shall be exacted ; and he
will have more to make him ashamed than to make
him boastful. He shall render an account to God,
not only of himself, but of all those that have been
committed to his care; and all they that are of the
household of the Lord have been committed to his
care. . . .

" The steward is placed over the household that
he should give them meat in due season. To Peter

34 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

the Lord said: 'Lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.*
The steward is bound to give meat, that is, of exam-
ple, of the word and of the sacrament, just as if the
Lord had said, ' Feed with the example of conduct,
with preaching the doctrine, and with the sacrament
of the Lord's supper.'

" And now, my brethren and my children, behold
the meat of the word from the table of Holy Writ
which I have set before you; expecting from you
this recompense, that without disputation ye shall
lift up pure hands to the Lord and ask in prayer,
believing, that even this office of Apostolic service,
which is too great a burden for my weak shoulders,
I shall be enabled to fill to the glory of His holy
name, to the salvation of my own soul, to the advant-
age of the Church Universal, and to the profit of all
Christian people, through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
who is God over all things, blessed from everlasting
to everlasting."

The doctrines that God Himself had set Peter at
the head of the Church, that Peter's successors had
inherited his duties and powers, that they stood
above all men and must judge all men were ancient
tenets of the Church ; but like most political doc-
trines and phrases, whether novel or familiar, they
derived their importance from the character and
power of the speaker. Innocent passionately desired
to fulfil his duty of judging the world; and as a
judge is a mere idle show unless he has power to
enforce his judgments, he also passionately desired
to put the Papacy in such a position that he should
be able to execute his judgments. Spiritual means, it

INNOCENT, THE PREACHER 35

is fair to suppose, would have been more attractive
to him; and, according to modern ideas, moral sua-
sion and ecclesiastical censures should have been the
limit of his endeavours. But he conceived his duty
differently. His duty as he saw it was not to coax,
to argue, or to threaten, but to compel. And in order
to compel the princes of the world to obey his judg-
ments, he must have power; power to enforce spirit-
ual laws, power to keep the Church free from the
oppression and meddlings of the world. "Ecclesiast-
ical liberty," he said, " is never better taken care of
than when the Roman Church has full power in
things temporal as well as in things spiritual."

CHAPTER IV

JOACHIM, THE PROPHET

Lucemi da lato
il Calabrese abate Gioacchino,
di spirito profetico dotato.

Paradisot xn, 139-41.

By my side shines
Abbot Joachim of Calabria
With prophetic soul endowed.

ORGANIZATION, system, policy are great factors in a
body corporate, but they are not everything. The
power that enabled Innocent to play so large a part
in the affairs of Europe was not merely the organiza-
tion of the Church, its policy, its jurisprudence, or
its administration. The strength of the ecclesiastical
system lay in the spirit within. The world was re-
ligious-minded ; it believed that God the Son, the
Virgin Mary, and the saints took an active part in
the concerns of men. In the general ignorance of
the workings of nature, imagination had free rein;
superstition abounded, but apart from the supersti-
tious multitude, men of subtle intellects and high
souls sought an explanation of life in religious terms,
a bettering of life by religious means ; they felt that
by searching and endeavour they should find a way
to bring all life into harmony with God's will.

It was a period of restlessness and discontent. The
very gains of the last hundred and fifty years, the
increase of wealth, the growth of knowledge, the

JOACHIM, THE PROPHET 37

addition to security of person and property, the
greater solidity of society awakened new appetites.
The hopelessness of the dark ages had gone, the
glimmer of day shone in the east, and a hunger for
better things had grown out of all proportion to
the increase in the means of satisfaction. The con-
trast between what life was and what life might be
was more vivid than it ever had been, so great had
hope grown. Hope bred discontent, and discontent
stirred the spirit of man to speculation and strange
dreams. Men took life seriously. If this was God's
world, as indubitably it was, then something among
men was wrong, for there was much abroad that had
no smack of heaven in it. The feudal system was
brutal and stupid. The Church had rotten spots ;
bishops, though decked out with mitre and cope, too
often were men of the world, mere soldiers and re-
vellers; priests were too often ignorant, lewd fellows,
and monks good-for-nothings. The realities of heaven
and hell required something different in the machin-
ery of salvation.

The life of the rich was easy and luxurious. To
them the world was fresh and young and existence
justified itself. It was not necessary to drag in re-
ligion, to explain the meaning of it all. A lovelorn
young noble might say to his love, as Aucassin of
Provence said to Nicolette : " What should I do in
Paradise? I don't want to go there unless I have
Nicolette, my sweetest love. To Paradise no one goes
but old priests, old cripples, old maimed fellows who
go bobbing day and night before altars and in crypts,
dressed in ragged old cloaks, all in tatters, naked,

38 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

barefoot, all sores, who die of hunger, thirst, cold,
and misery. Those go to Paradise. I have nothing
to do with them ; but to hell I prefer to go. For to
hell go the fine scholar and the gallant knight, the
good soldier and the free-born. I want to go with
them. There go the lovely, high-bred ladies that
have two or three lovers besides their lords ; there
go gold and silver, ermine and sable, there go harp-
ers and poets and the kings of the world. With those
I wish to go, if only I have Nicolette, my sweetest
love."

But the burghers and the peasants had no such
ideas. Poverty, disease, taxes, feudal exactions, ser-
vile obligations, wars, freebooters, rendered such
light jesting impossible. The hard lot of common
men weighed upon them. Many, indeed, began to
seek better things outside the Church; but the
Church was still ample enough to offer wide room
for thirsty souls, it had not yet become the rigid
system of dogmas that the Council of Trent and the
stagnant policy of the Vatican have since made it.
Many doctrines were still undetermined, many great
wastes of theology were still to be explored and
mapped. And in this perplexity, in this twilight of
dogma, inquiring spirits took themselves to the book
of truth. The one source of knowledge, for things
human as well as of things divine, knowledge both
of the end and of the way, was Holy Writ.

It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of
the Bible at this time. The leaders of thought pored
over its pages; the whole fabric of the Church jus-
tified itself by two or three famous texts, the canon

JOACHIM, THE PROPHET 39

law was built upon random verses. The great religious
awakening of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
was founded on the gospels. All agreed that the Bible
was God's Word, but all did not find the light in
the same parts. Priests looked to the books of the
law and to such verses as supported ecclesiastical
pretensions ; the lowly looked to the stories about
Jesus, to his sayings and his doings ; and men of
solitary lives and mystical leanings found a special
fascination in the Book of Revelation. That weird
book, with its wild rhetoric, its mysterious imagin-
ings, and its passionate anger, touched and quick-
ened the hopes and fears of a burdened and super-
stitious generation. Centuries before, in the midst
of the downfall of Roman civilization, St. Augustine
had endeavoured to find in the visions of the Hebrew
seer an explanation of the evils that surrounded him.
Others had followed in Augustine's steps. They read
therein how the Apostle John, the best beloved, had
foreseen the dreadful happenings of the times in
which they were living. In the evils that crowded
round them, — war, pestilence, famine, injustice, vice,
brutality, — they recognized the fulfilment of his
wild words ; they felt the presence of the rider on
the white horse, of the seven seals, of blazing stars,
of locusts, of horned beasts, of a scarlet woman, of
Antichrist himself. These apocalyptic visions fur-
nished a fiery drama for the lonely souls who looked
out from their monasteries in bewilderment upon the
world. One of these lonely souls, in whom hope out-
weighed fear, and love triumphed over hate, was
Joachim, a Cistercian monk of Calabria. From the

40 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

name of the place where he founded a new monas-
tic order he is called Joachim of the Flower.

This longing, hungry man had undergone in his
youth the great religious experience of a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem. Bred to luxury he had begun life as
a young man of fashion ; he was fastidious about
his clothes and dyed his hair, which was naturally
black, the yellow colour affected by German dandies.
But during his pilgrimage the sight of a plague at
Constantinople and the holy memories in Judea
wrought powerfully upon his sensitive spirit. He re-
turned to Calabria, renounced the world and became
a monk.

The monks of Calabria inherited the Greek mo-
nastic traditions of ascetism, and Joachim outdid his
fellows. He wore the shabbiest clothes ; he paid no
heed to what he ate and drank ; during Lent he
hardly tasted food at all ; in fact, he was indifferent
to hunger and thirst, heat and cold. And yet he was
not a fanatic. He was very hospitable and always
treated his guests with distinguished courtesy, es-
pecially at table ; and when he dined abroad partook
of any suitable dish put before him. If a brother
was ill, in spite of the rules he bade him eat and
drink whatever he had a mind for. He was always
kind to the sick and needy. When he was abbot, he
used to wash the hospital himself and inspect the food
for the patients. He was merciful to his servant, and
on a journey, if he saw him tired, would make him
ride the mule, turn and turn about. He was very
strict in the matter of morals and in enforcing the
monastic vow of obedience, as well as in rendering

JOACHIM, THE PROPHET 41

obedience himself. He took a high view of the
priestly office. Once in Palermo the Empress Con-
stance sent for him to come to the palace. He
found her in the chapel sitting in her usual seat and
a little chair beside her set for him. When the Em-
press said that she wished to confess, he rebuked
her : " I," said he, " am now in the place of Christ,
and you are in the place of the penitent Magdalene ;
get down, sit on the floor, and then confess; or I
will not hear you." The Empress got down on the
floor and there humbly confessed her sins, to the
edification of her attendants.

Joachim's one great interest was to study the pro-
phecies ; his one great pleasure to celebrate mass.
During mass he was in a sort of ecstasy, his face
(usually the colour of a dry leaf) became like that
of an angel, and sometimes he wept. When he
preached, the young monks gazed on his face as if
he were an angel presiding over them, and when he
knelt in prayer his countenance was aglow as if he
looked upon Christ face to face. Even when he spent
the whole night writing, he was punctual at vigils,
and " I never," says Bishop Lucas, his biographer,
then a young monk, "saw him go to sleep during
the singing."

Joachim was abbot only for a short time ; he re-
signed his office in order that he might devote him-
self wholly to studying the Scriptures. He applied
himself principally to the Book of Revelation. Like
St. Augustine in his time, Joachim was intensely
conscious of the evil in the world. He had lived
through the strife between Frederick Barbarossa and

42 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Pope Alexander III, and through the cruel war be-
tween Henry VI and the Norman claimants to the
Sicilian throne; he had seen the triumph of Saladin
and the fall of Jerusalem; he had witnessed the
heresy that raged in southern France and was fast
spreading in Italy. He had wondered in terror at
malignant diseases that came no one knew how and
swept away families and towns. In the midst of these
ills he looked for comfort to the consecrated servants
of God, and found worldliness, simony, vulgarity.
The professed followers of Christ had failed : " We/'
he said, " who call ourselves Christians and are not."
These awful perturbations in nature must have some
mighty significance, the world must be approaching
some tremendous crisis. The sacred book would
show ; and Joachim laboured day after day, night
after night, in search of a hypothesis that should
reveal the truth. One can imagine this strange, sen-
sitive man, who lived more in a world of fantastic im-
agination than on the earth, rapt in transcendental
thoughts and wrestling with the mystery of evil in
prayer, in contemplation, in fasts and vigils, or seek-
ing an explanation of this unintelligible world in
the wild ravings of the Hebrew seer.

Two texts gave him his clue ; and he followed it
patiently, laboriously, in the light of St. Paul's say-
ing : " The letter killeth but the spirit giveth life."
One text was : " I will pray the Father and he shall give
you another Comforter, that he may abide with you
forever " ; the other was : " I saw another angel fly in
the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel."
This clue led him to the following hypothesis.

JOACHIM, THE PROPHET 43

The three persons of the Trinity were equal, co-
essential, consubstantial, co-eternal, and co-omnipo-
tent. That was a fundamental doctrine of the
Christian religion. From this truth it followed logic-
ally that the Holy Ghost must exercise as great
a share of divine and directing providence in the
affairs of men as the Father or the Son. Both of
them had had their dispensations. The Father had had
His Gospel, the Old Testament ; the prophets and
patriarchs had been His ministers. The Son had had
His Gospel, the New Testament ; the priests were
His ministers. Therefore the Holy Ghost, also, must
have His dispensation, His gospel, and His minis-
ters. Surely the " everlasting gospel " that St. John
had seen in the hands of the angel — not a tang-
ible book of parchment, but a spiritual emanation
from the Old and New Testaments (as the Holy
Ghost emanated from the Father and the Son) —
was the Gospel of the Holy Ghost, and monks, holy
men living far from the world in psalmody and
prayer, must be His ministers. By assiduous study,
by comparing text with text, by hammering, twist-
ing, and rending the reluctant letter, Joachim broke
through bark and resisting integument, and got at
the spirit within. This ascetic visionary studied his
facts with minute and loving care ; and as his hy-
pothesis developed, it grew clearer and clearer, until
texts clustered about it with the very fulness of
proof and conviction. Parallels between the Old and
New Testaments, concord between remote passages,
allusions plain as day when once the veil was rent,
texts of all kinds, shed a flood of light on the hidden

44 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

truth, and at last the three dispensations of the
three Godheads stood fully revealed.

In the first the Father reigned ; He was God of
law and of punishment ; men were afraid before Him
like slaves before their master ; old age was the type
of the indwelling spirit ; the light of His reign was
dim like that of the stars, and there was old Decem-
ber bareness everywhere. In the second the Son
reigned ; He was the God of wisdom and knowledge,
in whom severity was tempered by grace ; men were
no longer slaves but sons ; and youth was the type
of the spirit therein ; the light of His reign was like
the light of dawn, and signs of spring were abroad.
In the third the Holy Ghost was to reign ; He was
God of love, of grace in its plenitude ; His service
was perfect freedom ; love imbued everything ; little
children were the type of the spirit ; the light therein
was like that of high noon, and summer splendour
reigned ; it was the time of harvest, the season of
lilies; holy men were aglow with divine fire, un-
touched by the grossness of earth they floated in
mystic contemplation like birds in air ; and all men
were absorbed in love, in prayer, and psalmody.

To Joachim's mystic spirit this monastic period of
love, peace, and purity was almost at hand ; and the
letter of Scripture — beaten, tortured, racked into
confession — revealed, though not perhaps with final
certainty, the time of its coming. The key to this
question of time lay in the equality between the
Persons of the Godhead. The temporal duration of
the reign of the Father must by virtue of their equal
majesty find a parallel in the reign of the Son. The

JOACHIM, THE PROPHET 45

length of the first period was known. There were
sixty-three generations from Adam to Christ ; there
must therefore be sixty-three generations from the
beginning of Christ's reign to the beginning of the
reign of the Holy Ghost. But when did Christ's
reign begin? Various reasons showed that it could
not be calculated from the date of His birth. The
problem was very difficult. It was necessary to sub-
ject the letter that killeth to further torture — peine
forte et dure — in order to get at the truth. The
second period began, not with the life of Christ on
earth, which was rather a fulfilment, a season of
harvest as it were, than a commencement, but with
Uzziah, King of Judea, who (as was proved by sundry
analogies of more or less cogency) represented the
beginning, the sowing of seed. As King Uzziah pre-
ceded Christ by twenty-one generations, the second
period had still forty-two more generations to run
after the Nativity, that is, reckoning thirty years to
a generation, it would end in 1260 A.D.

It is wrong to render Joachim's passionate inter-
pretation of a moral crisis in this bald arithmetical
manner. The high-strung, emotional Calabrian flew
at the sacred text like Michelangelo at a block of
marble, hacking, cutting, chiselling, shaping, until
he forced the cold material to set free the imprisoned
truth within. He cared little or nothing about dates
and times ; his soul was swept along on the whirl of
St. John's tremendous vision ; he saw again the pale
horse ridden by Death with hell following after, he
saw the fearful beasts and the stars of heaven falling
to earth as the fig tree casts her fruit ; he felt the

46 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

mighty, mystic import of the end of one era and
the beginning of another, and his soul flushed with
expectation and passion.

Joachim lived, while he was finishing his books,
in a remote place, Pietralata, in the southern part
of Calabria ; but his reputation as a holy man, as a
great scholar, as a mystic, spread far and wide. This
lonely, austere, loving soul was thought to have read
the book of fate. Men attributed supernatural powers
to him. Disciples flocked around, and he was con-
strained to remove to a still more remote spot, Fiore,
in Sila, a mountainous part of Calabria, and there
he built a monastery. This stood high above the
plain, with mountain-tops for neighbours, in perfect
quiet, except for the winds in the hills and the noise
of running waters rising from the valleys. By reason
of his fame the monastery flourished, and became
the parent of new houses ; but the cares of manage-
ment, even in a monastery of his own creation, were
an irksome restraint. They shut out the free air of
the spirit. So he renounced Fiore and went back to
his little hermitage at Pietralata, where he died ( 1202).

Some of Joachim's doctrines were doubtless very
near heresy, and indeed some of his remarks on the
Trinity were condemned by the Fourth Lateran
Council; but the condemnation went no further,
and seems to have been due less to his errors than
to the anger of the monastic bodies which he de-
nounced for their irreligious practices. In spite of
this condemnation Joachim's fame grew and grew ;
he became prophet, saint, worker of miracles, and
his books were read far and wide. Soon all sorts of

JOACHIM, THE PEOPHET 47

spurious prophecies and denunciations were foisted
upon him. Stories circulated among pious monks
how Joachim had foretold evil of the Hohenstauf ens,
and when the great struggle between the Church
and Frederick grew fiercer and fiercer, men remem-
bered his anticipations of Antichrist and looked
forward with a wild surmise to the fatal year 1260.

CHAPTER V

PAPAL JURISPRUDENCE

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento ;
Hae tibi erunt artes ; pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.

^Eneid, vi, 852-54.

These arts, mark tliou, Roman, shall be thine ;
To rule the nations with thy ordered law,
To impose the usages of peace, the conquered spare,
And overthrow the proud.

ABBOT JOACHIM represents the rebellious spirit of
the anchorite, indignant with the compromises that
the soul makes with the body, that the Church makes
with the world. But however far he is from the typical
churchman, however little he may seem to count in
the Church's doings, nevertheless he is in the Church
and of the Church ; in the crypt of her holy edifice
he and his followers ceaselessly chant their litanies,
and in moments of trial or penitence she listens to
them. And we must not forget the strain of those
litanies — Miserere Domine — while we consider the
political part of the Church, her legal structure, and
the methods and procedure of her supreme pontiff.
It might seem, as indeed it has seemed to oppon-
ents of the Papacy who approach the question either
from the standpoint of the gospels or of a purely
civil state, that Innocent exercised a usurped, unjus-
tifiable, and irregular dominion over Europe, that
his government was autocratic, the assertion of his

PAPAL JURISPRUDENCE 49

personal will. On the contrary, the principles of his
authority are nearly or quite as clear and well defined
as the equitable jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor.
Their multiform character gives them an autocratic
appearance. Where Innocent had political rights he
acted like any feudal lord ; where he had ecclesiast-
ical rights he acted according to canon law and the
practice of the papal chancery. The political rights
of the Papacy extended, in different manners and in
different degrees, to the papal provinces of central
Italy, to the dependent kingdom of Sicily, and to the
component parts of the Holy Roman Empire ; the
ecclesiastical rights of the Papacy extended through-
out Christendom, and if they appear strange and
exaggerated to our modern eyes, we must always re-
member that at this time civil and ecclesiastical con-
ceptions of society were confusedly struggling with
one another for the mastery.

These ecclesiastical rights or pretensions extended
to the sphere of diplomacy and politics as well as of
law ; and naturally were less explicit in diplomacy
and politics than they were in law. In law the juris-
diction claimed by the Church was perfectly definite,
although it was by no means always admitted by sec-
ular governments; so definite that we are wont to
think of it as we think of civil jurisdiction, as the
creature of positive law, as a body of enactments by
oecumenical councils and other ecclesiastical author-
ities. But this way of thinking is misleading. The
legal jurisdiction of the Church was, of course, laid
down and defined by venerable authorities, by coun-
cils, synods, Fathers, and popes; but these authorities

50 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

•were mere interpreters of Holy Writ. All the canons,
directly or by logical inference, depend upon the
Bible ; and we shall not understand ecclesiastical pre-
tensions, whether in law or diplomacy, unless we re-
gard them, as the great churchmen did, as corollaries
from the very words of God.

The Church's legal jurisdiction may be broadly
divided into two branches, one where ecclesiastical
persons are concerned, the other where the subject-
matter is ecclesiastical or religious; but it will be
easier for us to understand the policy and actions of
the Papacy, as well as more germane to our purpose,
if we do not limit ourselves to a strictly legal point
of view, but give to the term, ecclesiastical jurisdic-
tion, a significance wide enough to include matters
that range beyond courts of law and concern diplo-
macy and politics, and classify the heads of that
jurisdiction as a papal legate might propound them
to a foreign court.

(1) Unity of the Church : The texts that speak
of a single fold with a single shepherd, and of the
seamless garment of Christ, are clear. They leave no
doubt upon the right to take all measures that may
be necessary to maintain the unity of the Church.
Heresy must be put down. No sovereign can admit
the right of rebellion ; no union can permit secession ;
no government can allow anarchy. The existence of
the Holy Catholic Church depended on this principle.

(2) Defence of the Faith : A very wide jurisdic-
tion ; including the right to set on foot a crusade to
the Holy Land, to legislate for Jews and Saracens,
to exterminate heretics, etc.

PAPAL JURISPRUDENCE 51

(3) The Clergy : The Church had sole criminal
jurisdiction of all persons in orders, jurisdiction of
their appointment or election, of their rights and
duties, and of church property, excepting feuds, and
even feuds when held of the Church or in frank-
almoin, and also of tithes and ecclesiastical dues.

The mere announcement of an intention to take
orders was enough to confer jurisdiction. For in-
stance, the case of Pier Bernadone may be cited. He
summoned his son before a civil tribunal, the con-
suls of Assisi, but Francis asserted that he was a
servant of God, whereupon the consuls refused to
entertain the cause and the father was obliged to
betake himself to the bishop's court.

(4) Investiture: Complete authority over the
clergy necessarily involves the right of installing pre-
lates in ecclesiastical offices. This right of investiture
was the particular point at which the Church and
the civil power had clashed under Hildebrand and
Henry IV . The struggle had ended in the compromise
of the Concordat of Worms (1122). A similar settle-
ment was made in England under Henry I. The
election of a prelate belonged to the clergy according
to the canons of the Church, and the investiture to
the sacred office must be made by ecclesiastical hands;
but the civil power had the right to be represented at
the election and also to confer upon the newly elected
prelate the temporalities pertaining to his office, and
those temporalities remained subject to civil obliga-
tions.

(5) Matrimony, Divorce, etc. : In modern times
marriage is looked upon as a contract sui generis

52 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

to which the State is a party ; in the Middle Ages
it was regarded as a contract to which God is a
party. God joins a man and his wife (Gen. n, 24).
Marriage was a sacrament, and so within the special
care of the Church, and the Church unhesitatingly
asserted her jurisdiction. The most famous matri-
monial cause during Innocent's pontificate was the
divorce between Philip Augustus, King of France,
and Ingelberg, his Danish queen. He had married
her for considerations of policy ; but immediately
or almost immediately after the ceremony, he took
a violent dislike to her and repudiated her. At his
bidding a provincial council granted a divorce, but
the poor queen in her broken French appealed to
the Pope — " Mala Francia, Mala Francia, Roma,
Roma ! " — and the Pope entertained her appeal,
reversed the judgment, and enforced it by the ban
of the Church. As a corollary, all questions con-
cerning promises to marry, right of dower, and sim-
ilar matters came within ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
For example, King John withheld the dower due
to Queen Berengaria, widow of King Richard. She
applied to the Pope for aid ; he assumed cognizance
of the matter, and in the end John was obliged to
give way.

(6) Wills, Intestacy, Legitimacy : As a conse-
quence of the jurisdiction over marriage, ecclesiasti-
cal tribunals judged questions concerning legitimacy
as well as wills and rights of succession to chattels.
Jurisdiction of wills began in the duty to see that
the testator's bequests for the good of his soul were
carried out, and of intestacy perhaps in the idea

PAPAL JURISPRUDENCE 53

that the omission to have made such bequests was a
sin. The Bible afforded ample justification for this
jurisdiction (Num. xxvii, 6-11).

(7) Widows and Orphans : These were specially
under God's protection : " He doth execute the judg-
ment of the fatherless and the widow " (Deut. x,
18). " Ye shall not afflict any widow or fatherless
child" (Ex. xxii, 22). "A father of the fatherless
and a judge of the widows is God in His holy habita-
tion " (Ps. LXVIII, 5).

(8) Vows, Oaths, Pledges: A vow was calling
upon God to witness. " Thou shalt not take the name
of the Lord thy God in vain (Ex. xx, 7). ... When
thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thy God, thou
shalt not slack to pay it ; for the Lord thy God will
surely require it of thee; and it would be sin in
thee. . . . That which is gone out of thy lips thou
shalt keep and perform" (Deut. xxm, 21, 23; Num.
xxx, 2, etc.). This was the main ground for the
Church's claim to guide and control crusades as well
as individual crusaders, and also the ground for her
claims of jurisdiction over contracts.

(9) Criminal Jurisdiction over Ecclesiastical
and Moral Offences: This included offences against
faith, morality, or the Church, such as simony, blas-
phemy, sacrilege, adultery, perjury, heresy, slander,
libel, usury, and offences committed against the
clergy. For simony Peter's dealing with Simon the
sorcerer was ample warrant (Acts vni) ; and for usury
there were many texts, " Do good, and lend, hoping
for nothing again" (Luke vi, 35; Ezek. xvm, 17;
Lev. xxv, 36, etc.). The presence of sin always con-

54 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

f erred jurisdiction, very much as fraud confers juris-
diction on a court of chancery.

(10) Universities: The Pope exercised jurisdic-
tion over universities because they were managed by
clerks and because theology was taught there. For
instance, Innocent confirmed the rules and regula-
tions of the University of Paris, and threatened to
remove the University from Bologna.

(11) A General Jurisdiction for the Common
Welfare: This was a sort of general jurisdiction,

based upon the public weal, over such matters as
highways and tolls, perhaps for the sake of pilgrims
coming to Rome, coinage, weights and measures, and
other things, such as offences against persons under
the protection of the Church. This general papal
jurisdiction was perhaps a development of the early
episcopal jurisdiction, which had been conferred on
bishops by the Emperors when the latter pursued
their policy of raising up the bishops as a counter-
poise to the disobedient barons. But the papal juris-
diction reached out far beyond the warrant of its
origin. Innocent says in his inaugural sermon : "All
they that are of the household of the Lord have
been committed to my care." The text, " Peter, feed
my sheep," was always on the tip of the ecclesiastical
tongue.

(12) International Peace: This is part of the
general jurisdiction of the Pope as the executive
charged to administer the precepts of the Bible,
"Seek peace and pursue it" (Ps. xxxiv, 14). "And
into whatsoever house ye enter first say, Peace be to
this house" (Luke x, 5). " My peace I give unto you "

PAPAL JURISPRUDENCE 55

(John xiv, 27). The Pope had the right to impose
peace in the interest of a crusade or simply in order
to prevent the evils and wickedness of war.

(13) Conscience : The Papacy asserted a sort of
chancery jurisdiction over all matters that touched
the conscience. The Pontiff of Christendom, as the
Vicar of Christ, must see that men do the things
that conscience and fair dealing prescribe. This gen-
erous warrant for interposition ekes out the minor
departments of his jurisdiction, and is the real base
for the ecclesiastical claim to control the civil power.
As Innocent wrote to the King of France, the juris-
diction of the Church embraced " all that pertains
to the salvation or damnation of the soul." Such
authority flowed from the power of the Keys.

(14) Appellate Jurisdiction: The principle of
unity required that all Christendom should regard
Rome as the source of ecclesiastical authority. As
Rome could not, owing to the size of Christendom
and the nature of hierarchical organization, give
direct commands to all her flock, the most efficient
means to attain unity of law, of authority, of policy,
of administration, was to secure as large an appellate
jurisdiction for the Roman See as possible. Innocent
was extremely jealous of this right of appeal, and
fostered the practice of turning to Rome for redress
in all possible cases. He looked on Papal Rome as
the successor to Imperial Rome, believing that to
him, as the spiritual heir of the Caesars, the Appello
ad Ccesarem was addressed.

The most famous case concerns the election to the
archiepiscopal see of Canterbury and was the cause

56 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

of the great quarrel between the Pope and King
John. The case involved the respective rights of the
monks of Canterbury, the suffragan bishops of the
province, and the King, in the election of an arch-
bishop. On the death of Archbishop Hubert in 1205
the monks, in great haste and secrecy and without
notice to the King, elected to the vacant see one of
themselves, Reginald, the sub-prior. Apprehensive
of the consequences of what they had done, they
swore the archbishop-elect not to divulge his election
until it should be confirmed by the Pope, and sent
him with a small company of monks post-haste to
Rome. Hardly had he crossed the English Channel
when he began boasting that he was the Archbishop
of Canterbury. His brethren at home, provoked at
his breach of secrecy and fearful of the King's
anger, promptly asked permission of the King to
elect another archbishop. The King suggested tte
Bishop of Norwich, one of his familiars. The monks
were glad to obey; they immediately elected and
installed the bishop, and the King put him in pos-
session of the temporal properties of the see. Mean-
while the suffragan bishops had sent envoys to Rome
to deny the validity of an election without their con-
currence, claiming a right to participate, and yet ac-
quiescing in the election of the Bishop of Norwich.
The King also sent a committee of monks to Rome,
and openly pledged himself to accept whomsoever
they should elect, but he had exacted an oath from
them to elect no one but the Bishop of Norwich.
There were therefore two candidates before the
Pope : Reginald, who rested his claim on the first

PAPAL JURISPRUDENCE 57

election by the monks, and the Bishop of Norwich,
who, supported by the King and the suffragan bish-
ops, claimed that the first election was invalid as it
had been held without the King's presence or per-
mission.

The Pope, in order to have full power to make an
end of the whole matter and perhaps foreseeing his
decision, bade the monks of Canterbury delegate
their powers of election to a committee, and send
that committee to Rome. He then heard the evi-
dence and the arguments. He decided, first, that the
election lay with the monks and that the suffragan
bishops had no right to take part ; next, that both
elections by the monks, that of Reginald and that of
the Bishop of Norwich, were irregular and invalid.
He therefore quashed what had been done, and bade
the plenipotentiary committee proceed to a new
election. Probably at his suggestion, or perhaps
upon his insistence, the committee elected Cardinal
Langton.

Stephen Langton was an Englishman of noble
birth and high character, learned, wise, able, reso-
lute, and fearless ; in fact he was admirably fitted
for the position, but the King regarded him as an
enemy and his election as an infringement upon his
royal rights, and refused to accept him. A bitter
quarrel arose. The King drove the monks from Eng-
land; the Pope laid England under an interdict. The
King persecuted the Pope's partisans ; the Pope ex-
communicated the King. The King still resisted ;
the Pope released the English from their allegiance,
declared the throne of England vacant, and charged

58 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

the King of France to execute his decree. The com-
bination of enemies, Pope, rebellious barons, and
foreign invaders, forced John to yield ; he knelt be-
fore the papal legate, surrendered his crown and
received it back as liegeman to the Pope. Next to
the episode at Canossa, this royal humiliation is the
most spectacular triumph of the sacerdotal order
throughout the whole history of Europe.

The authority of the Church was enforced by in-
terdict, excommunication absolute or temporary, by
penance, by degradation, by deprivation of church
property, by boycott, by confiscation, by imprison-
ment, by whipping, by recourse to the secular arm,
by " the bread of tribulation and the water of an-
guish," and various other ecclesiastical penalties;
and in the case of offending monarchs, even by
deposition, as in the cases of King John, of Count
Kaymond of Toulouse, and of the Emperor Otto.

This vast ecclesiastical jurisprudence, though it
traced its origin to the revealed word of God, de-
pended upon the organization of the Church. With-
out that organization any claim to a universal juris-
diction would have been as idle as a beggar's dreams.
Christendom was divided into archiepiscopal pro-
vinces, each province into dioceses, each diocese into
parishes; archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons
rose in an ordered hierarchy; codes of law, rules of
procedure, regulated all affairs; meetings, synods,
councils knit the great system together, member to
member ; and over all the Pope, from the throne of
Peter, held up the shield of apostolic protection and
the power of the two swords, spiritual and temporal,

PAPAL JURISPRUDENCE 59

the first to be wielded by him, the second at his
bidding. It was this system, this imperial order, this
arrangement for the due dispatch of business, this
copy of ancient Roman government, that gave reason
and justification to those ecclesiastical claims. And
the policy that animated and shaped this vast ecclesi-
astical jurisprudence was to oblige every person in
orders to render absolute obedience to his superiors
in office; to make every member of the Church feel
that he was the object of a paternal solicitude ; to
encourage high and low to carry their grievances,
their questions of rights and duties, of law and con-
duct, to the Papal See ; to render the appeal to Rome
as potent as in the days of Paul and Festus ; and to
make the Pope as universal a monarch as ever were
the Caesars.

CHAPTER VI

INNOCENT, DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM (1198-1216)

" I have set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out,
and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to
plant." — Jer. I, 10.

THE task of bringing the whole household of faith
to obedience was not easy. Far and near, from the
threshold of the Lateran to the Hebrides, from the
Hellespont to the Pillars of Hercules, the Church's
authority was flouted, her precepts disobeyed, her
priests pushed aside, her property withheld. The city
of Rome was in the hands of republicans and im-
perialists, the Roman Campagna was divided among
the Roman barons, the provinces of the Church were
fiefs of German soldiers, the marquisate of Tuscany
was in the hands of Philip Hohenstaufen, the late
Emperor's brother, The Kingdom was usurped by
German rebels. In the Empire there was a disputed
succession, in France Philip Augustus was flatly
contumacious, Richard of England was not as pious
as he should be, the kings of Navarre, Castile, and
Leon were refractory, in Constantinople the schis-
matic Greeks rent the seamless garment of Christ,
and in Provence the little foxes of heresy gnawed
the tender vines of Holy Church. Nothing disheart-
ened, Innocent girded himself for the task.

The political task fell under several heads : first,
control of the city of Rome; second, sovereignty in

INNOCENT, DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM 61

the papal provinces ; third, expulsion of the German
freebooters from The Kingdom ; fourth, selection of
an Emperor not inimical to the Papacy; fifth, the
imposition on all western Christendom of the will of
the Church. And in each several matter, as I have
said, Innocent did not act arbitrarily, but either in
accordance with a fixed, well-established, legal claim,
or under definite principles of ecclesiastical juris-
prudence that may almost be termed international
law.

Rome was a little shrunken city. Some thirty or
forty thousand people were housed within the wide
circuit of the Aurelian walls. With scanty commerce
and no industries beyond those of the money-lenders,
the artisans, and tradesfolk, it possessed little except
its sacred basilicas and its mighty ruins. Its import-
ance was due to being the seat of the Papacy and
the home of the ancient Empire. Abandoned by
Pope and Emperor it would have become a mere
cockpit for quarrelling nobles and a lawless mob.
Like other Italian cities it claimed the right to muni-
cipal self-government, and owing to the discord be-
tween Pope and Emperor often succeeded in enforc-
ing the claim. At the time of Innocent's accession,
Rome was under the rule of a senator chosen by the
city and of a prefect appointed by the Emperor;
all papal authority was suspended. The city, how-
ever, was turbulent, tenure of office was highly in-
secure, those out of power were always ready to
revolt, and the Papacy lay watching its opportunity
to enforce its claims to dominion. Innocent himself
has stated the ground of those claims : " Constantino,

62 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

the famous Emperor, after a divine revelation, was
cleansed from leprosy by St. Silvester in baptism.
He handed over to Silvester the city of Rome and
the Senate, together with the people and dignities
and all the kingdom of the West; he withdrew to
Byzantium and retained for himself the kingdom of
the East. Constantine, indeed, wished to confer on
Silvester the crown from his own head, but Silvester,
out of respect for the priestly crown or rather out
of humility, was unwilling to accept. Instead of the
royal diadem the Pope wears the gold embroidered
circlet. By his pontifical authority the Pope appoints
patriarchs, primates, metropolitans, and prelates ; by
his royal authority he appoints senators, prefects,
judges, and notaries."

More effective to enforce papal dominion than
Constantino's charter was papal gold, great prop of
the political power of the Papacy. The private
estates of the Church, her feudal dependencies, the
contributions of the clergy, the offerings of the faith-
ful, redemptions of penance, Peter's pence, and vari-
ous ecclesiastical taxes levied throughout Latin
Christendom, maintained the papal purse ; and where
its enemies used force, the Papacy made no scruple
to defend itself with gold. In a short time Innocent
succeeded in making both senator and prefect ac-
knowledge his authority, and so, but not peacefully
or durably until after years of riot and disorder,
re-established the papal dominion in Rome.

In the papal provinces — Spoleto (Umbria), Ro-
magna,and the March of Ancona — Innocent adopted
another method. It was one thing to buy over the

INNOCENT, DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM 63

feudal nobles of Rome and of the Roman Campagna,
and another thing to buy back whole provinces from
foreign usurpers. The tradition of the Roman Curia,
however, to rely on gold was strong, and at first
Innocent was willing to bargain; but he soon laid
hold of a nobler weapon. Up to that time the notion
of Italy as a country for Italians had not arisen in
men's minds ; for centuries she had been a down-
trodden partner in the strange partnership of the
Holy Roman Empire, and now, split into pieces,
Italy was a mere name for the peninsula. Unity was
undreamt of; but there had gradually been grow-
ing, in different ways, that complexity of individual
peculiarities which constitute a national type. The
speech of Italians had ceased to be dog Latin and
was fashioning itself into the Italian language, and
a national sentiment against foreigners had sprung
up. "I will act," cried Innocent, "ad profectum
Italice" for the good of Italy; and when he smote
this patriotic chord, an Italian revolt against the
German tyrants answered him, and the intruders
were driven out of Tuscany and the papal pro-
vinces with a rush.

In The Kingdom a hard fight was needed. Inno-
cent acted under a double right : he was lord suzerain,
and by the appointment of the Empress Constance he
had become on her death guardian of Frederick II.
The Germans were strongly set in town and castle,
and a desperate struggle was maintained for years.
One of these Teuton freebooters, when he was bid-
den to obey the papal general, said that "if the
Apostle Peter, sent by Christ himself, should bid

64 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

him do so, he would not obey, even were he to be
damned in hell for it." In the end Innocent pre-
vailed and seated his ward upon the throne.

In Germany there were two claimants: Philip
Hohenstaufen, the late Emperor's brother, and Otto
of Brunswick, nephew of Richard Coeur de Lion,
and head of the House of Guelf . Young Frederick
had been elected heir to the Empire in his father's
lifetime, but both Guelf s and Hohenstaufens set
him aside, fearing the dangers involved in a long
minority. Civil war broke out between the two
claimants ; England supported Otto, and France, out
of enmity for England, supported Philip. Both sides
sought the Pope's help. But this appeal of both
parties was not, according to settled doctrines of the
papal chancery, in the least necessary in order to
give Innocent a right to interfere.

In Rome and in the provinces included in the
Carlovingian charters, the Pope had political rights
and acted as a feudal lord. In The Kingdom he
was both suzerain and guardian of the sovereign.
In the Empire, according to the papal theory, he had
political rights of a sovereign character. According
to this theory, the Papacy was, in certain respects
at least, the controlling power in the Empire, and
especially during an interregnum. The reasons for
this were plain. The Papacy had created the Holy
Roman Empire, for it had taken the imperial office
from the Greek line at Constantinople and trans-
ferred it to Charlemagne and his successors. And
before a German king could become Emperor, it was
necessary that the Pope should anoint him and crown

INNOCENT, DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM 65

him, as Samuel had anointed Saul and David. The
power to anoint included the power to choose. Inno-
cent said: "As God the creator of all things has
set two great lights in the firmament of the heavens,
the greater to rule the day and the lesser to rule the
night, so in the firmament of the Church Universal
God hath set two great dignitaries, the greater to
rule souls, the lesser to rule bodies. These are the
papal and imperial powers. Moreover, as the moon
derives its light from the sun, and in truth is less
than the sun in quantity and quality as well as in
place and effect, so the imperial power derives the
splendour of its dignity from papal authority ; the
closer it clings to that the more it shines, the further
it recedes the paler it becomes." There were many
texts from the Old Testament, as well as from the
New, to support this doctrine ; one alone was sufficient.
It was to Peter and his successors that God had
said : " I have set thee over the nations and over
the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to
destroy, and to throw down, to build and to plant."
Therefore, when Innocent hesitated after his help
was asked both by the Hohenstaufens and by the
Guelfs, it was not from any doubt as to his right to
interfere. The policy of Rome was to proceed judi-
cially, to assume a deliberative attitude, to enter into
no rash partisanship. In such cases motives are
usually of a mixed character. Innocent, as lawyer,
as statesman, as head of Christendom, did not wish
to decide wrong, either according to the principles
of ecclesiastico-political jurisprudence or according
to the interests of the Church. Hostile German

66 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

poets, like Walther von der Vogelweide, or over-
taxed English monks, like Matthew Paris, would
have said that he was waiting to see which way the
cat would jump. However that may be, he waited
for three years and then announced his judgment.

It must be remembered that the course of royal
and imperial procedure was this : upon election by
the great German nobles, the successful candidate
was crowned at Aachen by the Archbishop of Co-
logne, and so became " King of the Eomans, always
Augustus " ; he then received the iron crown of
Lombardy from the Archbishop of Milan at Monza ;
and last, the imperial crown at Rome from the hands
of the Pope in St. Peter's basilica.

Here is Innocent's judgment : " In the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It is the
duty of the Apostolic See diligently and wisely to
take counsel as to how she shall provide for the
Roman Empire, since, as is well known, the Empire
depends upon the Apostolic See for its very origin
and for its final authority : for its very origin be-
cause by her means and for her sake the Empire
was transferred from Greece, by her means because
she was the power which effected the transference,
for her sake in order that the Empire might the
better defend her ; for final authority, because the
Emperor receives the final or ultimate laying on of
hands for his promotion from the Chief Pontiff, when
he is by him blessed, crowned, and invested with the
Empire. . . . There are now three who have been
elected king, the boy [Frederick], Philip, and Otto ;
and there are three matters to be considered con-

INNOCENT, DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM 67

cerning each candidate : what is lawful, what is
right, and what is expedient. . . ." Innocent first
enumerates the arguments in favour of little Fred-
erick, including the oaths of allegiance to him taken
by the great nobles ; he then proceeds to the reasons
that make it lawful, right, and expedient to oppose
Frederick's election. " It is right because those oaths
were wrong and his election improper; for the
nobles elected a person unfit, not only for the Em-
pire but for any office, a boy scarce two years old
and not yet regenerate by the water of Holy Bap-
tism. Such oaths could not be kept without grave
hurt to the Church and detriment to Christendom;
the nobles had in mind that he should reign when he
came to man's estate, not when he was a baby; they
expected his father to reign during his minority. As
that expectation failed, the oath fails too. He is too
young to reign either in person or by attorney. And
as the Church must not and will not do without an
Emperor, it is plain that it is lawful to seek else-
where for an Emperor. It is equally obvious that it
is right to look elsewhere, for how can a baby, who
needs a guardian himself, rule over an Empire?
<Woe to thee, 0 land, when thy king is a child'
(Eccles. x). That it is not expedient to have Fred-
erick Emperor is plain because by this the kingdom
of Sicily would be united with the Empire and by
that union the Church would be confounded"

Innocent then takes up the arguments against
Philip. A Hohenstaufen election would convert the
Empire from its inherent character of an elective
empire into an hereditary empire. Philip had been

68 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

excommunicated and his absolution had been irregu-
larly conferred ; Philip had sworn allegiance to his
nephew, Frederick, and having broken that oath was
a perjured man ; Philip belonged to a family which
persecuted the Church, witness Henry, his brother,
and Frederick Barbarossa, his father ; and he him-
self, as Lord of Tuscany, had despoiled the Church
and arrogated to himself a claim of dominion up to
the very gates of Rome. " If he did so in the dry,
what would he not do in the green ? If up to now,
dry and sapless, or rather as one whose harvest is
in the blade, he persecuted us and the Roman Church,
what would he not do — God forbid it — if he
should become Emperor ? "

Frederick and Philip thus disqualified, Otto was
taken next into consideration. The arguments in
his favour were, that he was devoted to the Church
and was a scion of two families both devoted to the
Church, that of Saxony and of England, and grand-
son to the good and pious Emperor Lothair, also
devoted to the Church. Innocent's conclusion needed
little exposition. Otto was manifestly the candidate
to be elected (March, 1201).

Otto, however, did not receive Innocent's support
for nothing. On his part he renounced imperial
jurisdiction, and acknowledged papal sovereignty,
over the ecclesiastical states of central Italy ; he
swore to preserve The Kingdom under the suzerainty
of the Church, and to do the Pope's bidding with
regard to the Lombard and Tuscan leagues.

Despite the efforts of the Guelfs and the Papacy,
Philip's party prevailed. More and more adherents

INNOCENT, DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM 69

attached themselves to him, and his ultimate tri-
umph rose clearer and clearer into view. Innocent
prepared to make the best of a bad situation, and was
bargaining to obtain such concessions as he could
from Philip, when, in the nick of time, almost as if by
divine interposition, Philip was murdered (1208).
Otto was then accepted by all, and Innocent triumph-
antly crowned him with the imperial crown (1209).

No sooner, however, was Otto crowned than, Guelf
though he was, the imperial office forced him to
play the renegade. As candidate he had lavished
courtesy on Innocent, and, at the Pope's demand,
had reduced the imperial rights in Italy almost to a
shadow ; but as Emperor it was his duty to maintain
all imperial rights in their full integrity. He could
not follow two mutually inconsistent policies. He
clave to the Empire, broke his oaths to Innocent,
laid hands on the papal provinces, and even in-
vaded The Kingdom. Innocent promptly excom-
municated him (1210). Encouraged by this, the
Hohenstaufen party in Germany rose in revolt, de-
clared Otto deposed, and chose young Frederick for
Emperor. England remained faithful to the Guelf
cause ; but France and the Church carried victory
to the Hohenstaufens. Otto's cause was crushed on
the field of Bouvines, and with the papal benedic-
tion young Frederick received the German crown at
Aachen. For the second time the cause that Inno-
cent cursed had fallen and the cause that he blessed
had prospered.

Outside the limits of the Empire, Innocent ob-
tained a spectacular if not a solid success. The King

70 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

of England became a tributary vassal. The King of
Aragon travelled to Rome and accepted his kingdom
as a papal fief. The King of France bowed his head,
and at least pretended to obey the Pope's command.
The kings of Portugal, Castile, and Leon were rated
like schoolboys. The kings of Norway, Hungary,
and Armenia were admonished and advised. In Lan-
guedoc and Provence the army, blessed by the
Church, trampled down heresy. In Constantinople
the schismatic Greeks professed obedience to the Ro-
man See. The clerks in the Roman chancery might
well believe that the Church had conquered the world,
that the reign of God's saints on earth had begun.
No doubt this splendid ecclesiastical dominion was
far from stable. Kings and princes obeyed less from
wish to please the Pope than for fear of partisan
ambitions, domestic rebellion, and foreign invasion ;
their submission was time-serving and specious. But
in those days all obedience was tribute paid to force,
and kings were less obeyed than Innocent. He stands
out as the greatest political figure in Europe since
Charlemagne, the steward of the Lord triumphantly
ruling over the household of Faith.

The Fourth Lateran Council furnished a fitting cli-
max to Innocent's great career. At his summons the
Church militant assembled. Patriarchs, ambassadors
from emperors and kings, envoys from cities and
princes, scores of archbishops, hundreds of bishops
and abbots, thronged to do him honour. All the
notables of Christendom, near three thousand men,
in solemn council assembled, approved and ratified
all he had done. One thing, however, was lacking.

INNOCENT, DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM 71

The Holy Land was in the hands of the infidels ;
and with that thought ever uppermost, Innocent
could not be at peace. Throughout his pontificate
he had hoped to chase the infidels from those blessed
acres. The crusade of Philip Augustus and Rich-
ard Cceur de Lion (1190-92) had been fruitless. The
crusade of the French and the Venetians (1204) had
been worse than fruitless, for they had turned aside
from their goal to conquer and divide the feeble
remnant of the Greek Empire. Innocent had urged,
pleaded, and threatened in vain. Now, feeling that
his life could not last long, he made his last appeal.
On St. Martin's Day he preached in the Lateran :
" With desire I have desired to eat this passover
with you before I suffer" (Luke xxn, 15).

"I shall not refuse, if God so disposes, to drink
the cup of passion when it shall be handed to me,
whether for the defence of the Catholic Faith, for
the deliverance of the Holy Land, or for the liberty
of the Church ; but I do desire to remain in the flesh
until the work begun shall be finished. The desires
of men are of two sorts, spiritual and earthly ; and
I call on God to witness that I have desired to eat
this passover with you, not for the good things of
life, not for earthly glory, but for the good of the
Church Universal, and most of all for the deliver-
ance of the Holy Land. . . . Passover has two mean-
ings : in Hebrew it meaneth a passing over, in Greek
it meaneth to suffer, because we must pass through
suffering to glory ; for if we are to reign joint heirs
with Christ we must suffer with him. In this sense
I have desired to eat the passover with you.

72 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

" Would that in this the eighteenth year of our
pontificate the Temple of the Lord, our Holy Church,
should be restored, and that this solemn council
should be the celebration of a passover, a passing
from wrongdoing to righteousness ! The passover I
desire to celebrate with you is of three kinds, a
bodily, a spiritual, and an eternal. A corporeal pass-
over that shall be a passing over to deliverance of
miserable Jerusalem ; a spiritual passover that shall
be a passing over from one condition to a better for
the Church Universal ; an eternal passover so that
there may be a passing over from life to life in order
to obtain heavenly glory.

" Concerning the corporeal passover, Jerusalem
cries out to us in her misery with the lamentations
of Jeremiah : ' All ye that pass by, behold and see
if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow. She that
was great among the nations and princess among
the provinces, how is she become tributary ! ' The
holy places are dishonoured, the glorious sepulchre
of the Lord has lost its glory. There where men used
to worship Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of
God, men now worship Mohammed, the son of Per-
dition. Oh, what disgrace, what shame, what a con-
founding, that the children of the handmaid, vile
Ishmaelites, should hold our mother in bondage !
What shall we do ? Behold, dear brethren, I put my-
self wholly in your hands, I open my heart, ready,
if ye in council shall deem it expedient to undertake
this labour myself, to go to kings, peoples, nations,
yea, I would do more, if by mighty clamour I might
arouse them to get up and fight God's battle, that

INNOCENT, DOMINUS DOMINANTIUM 73

they may avenge the insult to the Crucified, who for
our sins has been cast out of His land, His home,
which He redeemed with His blood, and where He
wrought the act of our salvation.

" Whatever others may do, let us, priests of the
Lord, specially undertake this business, with our-
selves and our possessions coming up to serve the
needs of the Holy Land ; so that there shall not be
one but shall bear his part in this great work and
shall have his share in the great reward."

The council said " amen," the date was fixed,
the places of assemblage were chosen; but the ebb
tide of mediaeval Christianity had already set in,
there was hesitation and delay, and before prepara-
tions could be made, the great Pope died (July 16,
1216).

In spite of his glorious pontificate Innocent's
death showed (at least to Jacques de Vitry, a pious
pilgrim who came from afar to attend the papal
court) " how brief and vain is the deceitful glory of
the world " ; for in Perugia, where he died, his body
being left in the church unwatched, as was the cus-
tom, thieves got in by night, stripped off the rich
garments in which it had been wrapped, and left it
"almost naked and stinking." So base an outrage
committed at the very moment that the Pope's
strong hand was still, reveals a fatal weakness in the
papal government.

CHAPTER VH

ST. FRANCIS (1182-1226)

If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,
. . . and come and follow me. — Matt, xix, 21.

In his lightness

Most like some radiant cloud of morning dew,
Which wanders through the waste air's pathless blue
To nourish some far desert.

SHELLEY.

EVEN with the spoken words of God as the great
blocks for the base of the ecclesiastical fabric, even
with the strong cement of Roman organization that
bound the stones of it each to each, the vast edifice of
the Universal Church, under its ill-poised roof flung
heavenward by ascetic visionaries, would have fallen
of its own excessive weight (as it appeared to fall
in Innocent's prophetic dream), had there been
nothing more than organization and the Vulgate
to bear it up. The cement would have been rent
asunder, the stones would have fallen in a ruined
mass, had not the builders of that greatest of Gothic
structures, the mediaeval Church, found a new system
of vaulting ; and the new vaults lightly carried the
noble edifice for further centuries.

This new support came none too soon. Religious
movements were stirring everywhere. Interest in life
expressed itself in all sorts of religious speculation.
The northern parts of Italy were honeycombed with
new doctrines. Strange beliefs came down from

Aluian, phot.

ST. FRANCIS
Sacro Speco, Subiaco

ST. FRANCIS 75

France, across the Alps, along the coast, and over
the sea. In Lombardy, in Tuscany, in TJmbria, men
and women, especially the poor, turned against the
Church and her ways. Some of the more eager, of
untrained mind and ardent temperament, ignorant
and superstitious, seized upon wild doctrines that
came from afar no one knew how. Eastern thought
murmured its weird conceits ; and the poor peasants
of Languedoc and Lombardy heard and believed.
The very strangeness of the teachings drew them like
a magnet. The more fantastic the ideas, the more
they appeared true and august.

According to these ideas, the world is a battle-
field of two contending powers, Good and Evil ;
spirit, emanating from God, struggles with matter,
the soul fights against the flesh. Jehovah of the Old
Testament is no other than Satan, and the Christ of
the gospel is a mere phantom spirit. There is neither
hell nor purgatory ; priesthood and sacraments are
useless; the souls of men progress through many
incarnations back to God. Matter is bad, flesh is bad,
marriage is bad ; the Devil enters into all propagated
life. No man should beget children, nor eat meat, eggs,
milk, nor anything derived from animal life. Thus
these strange, austere, obstinate puritans wandered
far from the path of common sense ; and their evil-
thinking neighbours, suspicious of what they did not
understand, whispered foul stories of their doings.

A second current of religious sentiment expressed
itself in an evangelical movement. Once more the
Bible showed its power. Men read in the gospels
how Jesus and his disciples lived together in brother-

76 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

hood and poverty ; how, by example more than by
precept, they taught men to love one another and
to pray to God in simple words with pure hearts ;
then, lifting their eyes from the sacred pages, they
beheld a great political and administrative empire
that called itself Christ's Church, with a monarch at
the head, with great feudal lords, who called them-
selves bishops and archbishops, with priests, deacons,
archdeacons, subdeacons, acolytes, doorkeepers, exor-
cists, and choristers, with mighty temples, with liturgy,
ritual, and ceremonies, with unintelligible, muttered
formulas that sounded far more like magical incanta-
tions than like the Lord's Prayer. These men did
not wish to leave the Church, still less to attack her,
they wished to return to primitive Christianity and
to bring the Church with them. Their leader, Peter
Waldo, a rich merchant of Lyons, read the counsel
of perfection, sold his goods, distributed the money
among the poor, and went about preaching the gos-
pel. His disciples followed his example and meant
at first to do no more, but they could not stop there.
As they were not for the Church, they were obliged
to be against her. They adopted religious usages of
their own, they read the New Testament in the ver-
nacular, they preached and they prayed, all in a
very simple, evangelical fashion. They rejected the
worship of saints, the doctrine of t ran substantiation,
the ordination of priests, and the whole hierarchy.
So they became heretics. They had originally little
in common with the fanatical puritans ; but, pressed
together by the persecution of the Church, the two
bodies mingled in sects that differed on minor points

ST. FKANCIS 77

from one another, and blended their doctrines in
various heterogeneous creeds. The Church made
no distinction between Cathari, Patarini, Speronists,
Leonists, Arnaldists, Circumcised, or Vaudois; she
branded them all as secessionists, rebels, traitors,
heretics.

Rage as the Church might, hers was the fault.
She had not offered food meet for hungry sheep.
She had neglected her duties, and worse. Her bishops
were worldlings, they extorted money for perform-
ing their sacred functions, they abandoned their
dioceses. Mere absentee landlords, they followed
their ambitions and their pleasures far from the
lands that paid them rents. Priests toadied to the
rich and were arrogant to the poor ; many of them
were illiterate, bad in manners and worse in morals ;
sometimes priests refused to bury a man unless he
had bequeathed to them a third of his goods. A
familiar expression of disgust at a bad action was,
" I 'd rather be a priest than do that " ; and no less
severe than the common tongue were high-minded
prelates, like Innocent, who said himself that "the
corruption of the people has its chief source in the
clergy," and in a noble sermon spoke out in bold
rebuke : " The lust of the flesh pertaineth to volup-
tuousness, the lust of the eyes to riches, the pride of
life to honours ; and by these three bonds are we
clergy especially bound. The rope of voluptuousness
holds us so that we do not blush to harbour openly
dishonourable women in our houses, of whom lately
some were arrested, taken out by force, and severely
flogged, to the infamy of the clergy and the great

78 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

shame of the Church. To us the prophet spoke:
'Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord/
Foul to speak of, most foul to do ; but it is right to
speak out, that appetite to do may be cut off: there
are some who worship the son of Venus by night in
the bedchamber and in the morning offer up the
Son of the Virgin on the altar. . . . And also the
rope of avarice holds us so tight that many of us do
not blush to buy and sell and practise usury ; from
the prophet even unto the priest they are given to
covetousness, and from the least of them even to the
greatest of them, every one dealeth falsely. . . . And
thirdly, the rope of pride holds us so fast that we
had rather appear proud than humble, and we walk
head high, with eyes uplifted and neck erect ; we
make broad our phylacteries and enlarge the borders
of our garments, and we love the highest places at
the feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues. We
dress so showily that we seem rather bridegrooms
than clergymen, . . . and we are far from imitating
Him who said, ( Learn of me for I am meek and
lowly in spirit.' " Innocent speaks without mincing
words, but he does not exaggerate.

Other motives besides evangelical longings or aver-
sion to the faults of the clergy were at work as well :
a moral restlessness, a love of novelty, an impatience
with the actual, an appetite for the strange and the
mysterious, a superstitious inclination towards self-
sacrifice, a distrust of nature. No doubt, too, local
oppression by priest and prelate produced its effect.
From good motives and bad, from hope and from
folly, men abandoned the Church in great numbers.

ST. FRANCIS 79

In all northern Italy heresy flourished. It found its
opportunity in communal independence, in communal
jealousy, and in the constant antagonism between
the Papacy and the Empire. Verona, Rimini, Faenza,
Modena, Piacenza, Treviso, Ferrara, Florence, Prato,
Orvieto, Viterbo, and Assisi swarmed with noncon-
formists and strange sectarians. Milan, the great city
of Lombardy, was a very den of dissent. If some
pious soul ventured to expostulate with these disbe-
lievers, he was mocked at in the streets.

The danger to the Church was great. She had
prestige, power, an organized hierarchy, feudal rights,
political influence; but this was not enough. She
had more ; on the whole she stood for common sense,
for a sane view of life, in contrast with the wild,
oriental ideas of the fanatical nonconformists. But
even though the Church possessed these advantages,
so long as the heretics had the enthusiasm born of
the gospel on their side, they were too strong to be
overcome. The ecclesiastical warriors from the north,
who had trampled down revolt in Languedoc and
Provence, or other pious folk of the same kind,
might, indeed, be invited down ; but such allies did not
always act in the interest of religion, they had their
own axes to grind ; and as regards the situation in
the valley of the Po, it was very different from what it
had been in the valley of the Rhone. The Church did
not wish a crusading army to destroy the Lombard
cities, for they constituted her main bulwark against
the Emperors. Their subjection to crusaders from the
north would mean her undoing. So she could not
coerce the heretics by violence. Her hands were tied.

80 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

This falling away from the Church and the dif-
ficulties that hedged her about weighed heavily upon
Innocent, According to the legend, he beheld in a
dream the Lateran Church, the Mother Church of
Christendom, tottering to a fall, and a man of mean
aspect propping it up with his shoulder. There is
much truth in the legend. This man of mean aspect,
St. Francis, put the gospels to the service of the
Church, and cut the ground from under the heretics.
He was not aware of being a partisan in the struggle.
The doctrines of Peter Waldo from the north and of
Abbot Joachim from the south — return to prim-
itive Christianity, the renunciation of riches, the
distrust of learning — were spread over Italy, and
Francis, like other men, breathed them in ; but he
did not criticise the Church. He had no rebellious
spirit in his blood ; he was humble-minded and de-
voutly believed that Christ had created her. His way
was not to attack evil with denunciation and invect-
ive, but to plant good seed and foster it, to cause
the light of the gospels to shine everywhere.

m The Church was not to him what she appeared
to the heretics. She had come to Umbria as a giver
of freedom. Her power had liberated Assisi from the
German men-at-arms who had been wont to swagger
down from the Rocca on the hill and make free with
the women in the market-place. She did not appear
as a rich and arrogant corporation ; she was poor ;
her churches were neglected, her chapels dilapidated,
the cathedral of St. Rufinus was stern and simple,
and the bishop was neither an absentee nor arrogant.
The evangelical ideas that had blazed hot and im-

ST. FKANCIS 81

patient beyond the Alps had lost their heat and
impatience and had become temperate and gentle
with the temperate gentleness of Umbria by the
time Francis's father, Bernadone the merchant, had
brought them back with his French wares from
foreign trafficking. Or, if it was his mother that in-
stilled into him his evangelical ideas, she, true to her
Proven gal origin, taught him gospel stories, French
songs, and tales of Roland and Oliver, in all gentle-
ness.

Whatever the cause, evangelical religion came to
Francis not as the creed of a sect, not as a criticism
upon the Church, but as a great enthusiasm, in whose
light the wickedness of the world seemed matter for
compassion and not for punishment. He was no slave
to the word of the gospel ; he was filled with its spirit.
To him it was still full of youth, the Testament was
a New Testament, Christianity was a new order ;
his hope, his faith, were young. He loved with the
passion of youth, and the world looked young and
beautiful. The presence of God shone roundabout
him, and he longed to bring all men into the radiant
fellowship of love. His was a passionate idealism, a
love for Christ that made Christ's words, Christ's
least actions, ineffably dear ; and so he passed into
a passionate literalism, to a complete obedience, to
imitation to the uttermost, to a perfect self-abne-
gation. After Francis's death, legend shaped and
coloured his life so that it should seem a repetition
of Christ's life, or even as if in Francis Christ had
lived again ; and in doing so legend merely interpreted
Francis's will, for, as Dante says, fu tutto serafico

82 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

in ardor e, he burned with seraphic ardour to walk
close to Christ.

Being a lover, Francis believed that the one remedy
for all evil is love. If men would only look upon
Christ, they would love him too ; but in most men
the power of attention is untrained, it flutters help-
lessly towards the bits of glass and glittering sand
that strew the paths of life. He must set their atten-
tion free and turn it there where their souls might
hang "like fruit"; he must take from them the
coloured glass and the shining mica. Men were but
children, their possessions toys. So Francis preached
his doctrine of poverty, not for all men, but for those
able and willing to forsake the world and dedicate
themselves to God. Poverty is beautiful because she
sets men free from tawdriness and tinsel ; she is
lovable because she puts them face to face with truth ;
she is holy because she brings them near to God.

Not being a great intellectual genius, not having
a philosophical mind, Francis taught no new ideas,
he founded no new school, no new system of life;
but his radiant love so warmed the frosty earth that,
as Dante says, he should rightly be called a sun. He
held the cup of life to the lips of the thirsty, and
many found peace for their souls. Uneducated, un-
acquainted with the studies that busied the lawyers
of Bologna or the clerks of Paris, ignorant of Aris-
totle, of the Fathers, of comment and gloss on the
New Testament, he was untramelled in his love. He
believed in the creed and doctrines of the Church;
if one may call his profound indifference to creed
and doctrine, belief. He lived his life of worship

ST. FRANCIS 83

and service, not from hope of reward, but for the
joy of doing something for the Beloved. His
delight was to commune with the Beloved, to sing
His praise, to minister to lepers in remembrance
of Him, to give to the needy, and to gather to-
gether loving souls like himself. His power lay
in his transparent love. He was eloquent because he
unpacked the dearest of his heart; and he founded
a great order simply because he drew crowds of men
to him. Everybody felt in him the breath of a new
spring, the dawn of a beautiful day, the coming of
peace and happiness, of a time when men should
love one another, when birds and beasts and men
should recognize one another as fellow creatures
and friends, when poetry and music should be the
familiar means of expressing familiar thoughts ; in
short, Francis was the harbinger of that Kingdom of

God, in which

Love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.

Ernest Renan says that he did not really under-
stand the story of Jesus until he went to Palestine
and saw the places hallowed by His memory, the
stark mountains of Judea, the flowery fields of Gal-
ilee ; so it is necessary to wander about in Umbria
in order to understand Francis, for the simple, inno-
cent beauty of the country there is the symbol in
landscape of his soul. Behind Assisi, Mount Sub-
asio descends in steep, stern slopes to the plain ; the
olive groves glitter and shimmer when the wind
blows down from the Apennines on its way to the
purple horizon ; the little rivers, the Topino and the

84 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Chiascio, flow through green fields (in Francis's time
covered with forests) down to the tawny Tiber ;
gentle, well-mannered peasants, with sad eyes and
soft voices, drive glorious silvery oxen from furrow
to furrow. And all things, in lowland and upland,
on earth and in the sky, the glory of the morning,
the beauty of the sunset, the bells of the churches,
the larks, the swallows, and the wayside flowers,
unite in an unwritten melody of good will toward
men.

Francis began life as a jolly careless boy, singing
Proven gal songs in the piazza and playing -with his
comrades, the gayest of the gay. The world likes to
believe that its best-beloved saints had the charm of
naughtiness as well as the comeliness of virtue, and
Francis's biographers say that he trod the primrose
path of dalliance, as others do ; but one cannot be-
lieve that he smirched his white spirit. His most
intimate friends, Brothers Leo, Angelo, and Rufino,
say in their life of him: "He was naturally high-
bred in behaviour and in speech, and by the instincts
of his heart never spoke a rude or coarse word to
any one ; even when he was a jocund and riotous
young man he made a resolve not to answer people
who said coarse things" ; and they delight to speak
of him as "the Knight of Christ."

Whatever his boyhood may have been, when he
reached adolescence, that period when gifted young
men seek peace for their restlessness in poetry, in
melancholy, in visions, various influences wrought
upon him : illness, captivity (for Assisi and Peru-
gia were at war for a time and he was taken prisoner),

ST. FRANCIS 85

and perhaps his mother's evangelical ideas. He be-
came solitary and moody. His friends bantered him :
" Are you thinking of getting married, Francis ? "
He replied : " You have guessed aright, for I am
thinking of taking a wife nobler, richer, and more
beautiful than you have ever seen." And they jeered
at him, but he spoke the truth, not of himself, but
under the inspiration of God, for the bride he chose
was true Religion, nobler, richer, and more beautiful
in her poverty than all the rest. He renounced his
family, lived by himself, and worked with his own
hands at restoring dilapidated chapels, and, groping,
gradually found his way to his life's task of calling
simple souls to forsake the world of pleasure and of
vanity and to minister to the world of sorrow, illness,
and sin.

His doctrine of absolute poverty does not com-
mend itself to the world now, nor did it then, for
the world has never had faith or love. It is only the
lover who rejoices in the noble freedom of poverty;
and, even in this, Francis was no fanatic. The
Bishop of Assisi said to him : " Your life seems to
me hard and rough — to possess nothing at all in
this world." Francis replied: "My lord, if we had
any possessions we should need weapons for our
defence. For from possessions come contention and
law-suits, and by that in many ways the love of God
and of one's neighbour is hindered ; so we do not
wish to own anything at all in this world."

CHAPTER Vin

THE FIRST DISCIPLES (1209-1226)

Kant sains Fransois fat si esperis
De T amor dou saint esperis,
Ges cuers aloit en paradis
Per disirier et par amour ;

Aimons sains Fransois.

When St. Francis was so rapt
By the love of the Holy Ghost,
His heart went into Paradise
By desire and through love ;

Let us love St. Francis.

ONE can best understand the burning fire of Francis's
spirit by the illumination it cast on the countenances
of his companions. These men lived in bliss, in a
world of adoration, worshipping Christ in His ser-
vant Francis. A story told of Brother Giles in the
Fiorettii shows the feelings of the first disciples.

St. Louis, King of France, was on a pilgrimage
to visit sanctuaries through the world, and hearing
the very great fame of the holiness of Brother Giles,
who had been among the first companions of St.
Francis, got it into his heart at all cost to visit him
personally. And therefore he went to Perugia, where
Brother Giles was then living, and coming to the
door of the Brother's abode with a few companions,
like a poor unknown pilgrim, asked for Brother
Giles with great insistence, not saying anything to
the porter as to who it was that asked for him. The
porter then went and said to Brother Giles that

THE FIRST DISCIPLES 87

there was a pilgrim at the door who asked for him;
and it was revealed to Giles's spirit by God that it
was the King of France. At that on a sudden with
great fervour Giles left his cell and ran to the door ;
and without asking anything, although they had
never seen one another before, with very great de-
voutness down on their knees, they embraced and
kissed each other with as much familiarity as if for
a long time they had had a great friendship be-
tween them. And for all this neither spake a word
to the other, but they stayed so in one another's
arms with those marks of loving affection in silence.
And after they had stayed for a long space in that
way without saying a word together, they parted
from one another, and St. Louis went away on his
travels and Brother Giles went back to his cell.
When the King was gone, a brother asked one of
his fellows who it was that had been so enclasped
with Brother Giles, and the other answered that it
was King Louis of France, who had cqme to see
Brother Giles. When he repeated this to the other
brothers, they were much cast down that Brother
Giles had not said a word to the King, and they
complained to him and said : " Brother Giles, why
were you so rude that, to such a King, who came
from France in order to see you and to hear a good
word from you, you did not say a single thing ? "
Brother Giles answered : " Dear brothers, do not
marvel at this, that neither I to him, nor he to me,
could utter a word, because as soon as we clasped
one another in our arms the light of divine wisdom
revealed and made manifest his heart to me and my

88 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

heart to him, and so, looking into one another's
hearts by this divine working, we knew what I wished
to say to him and what he wished to say to me much
better than if we had spoken to one another with
our lips, and with much greater comfort ; and if we
had wished to express by voice what we felt in our
hearts, owing to the defect of human speech, which
cannot clearly express the mysterious secrets of God,
it would rather have been a discomfort than a com-
fort ; and so, know for sure that the King went away
wonderfully comforted."

After Francis had heard the divine call to live in
and yet not of the world, and had gathered his lit-
tle band about him, — Bernard, Peter, Giles, Sab-
batinus, John, Philip, Angelo, and others, — he felt
that the time had come to receive ecclesiastical ap-
probation. There were so many irregular movements
abroad that he and his friends might well be uneasy
lest they fall under a suspicion of indifference to the
Church, or worse. Therefore they journeyed to
Rome and asked for approval of their vows of pov-
erty and their purpose to preach. The Bishop of
Assisi introduced them to a cardinal, and the car-
dinal undertook to speak on their behalf to the Pope.
" I have found," said he, " a most perfect man who
wishes to live according to the Holy Gospel and to
observe evangelical perfection in all things ; I be-
lieve that by him the Lord purposes to reform the
Holy Church throughout all the world." Innocent
hesitated. His predecessors had approved Peter Wal-
do's vow of poverty ; but they had refused a license
for preaching, and evidently they had done well.

THE FIRST DISCIPLES 89

They had approved the order founded by Joachim,
but Joachim, though a good man, a great Biblical
scholar and perhaps a prophet, had not turned out
very orthodox. Innocent himself had given a rule
to the " Humble Men " which sanctioned poverty
and preaching, and likewise a similar rule to the
"Poor Catholics," for he saw that the Church must
make use of weapons like those that had been so
successfully used against her. But this was danger-
ous ground, wariness was very necessary. He tried
to compromise, and suggested that Francis should
join some order already established, but Francis
affirmed that he had received a mission from Christ
for this particular life and not for another. The
Pope proceeded cautiously ; an idealist himself, he
saw the spiritual power in the insignificant-looking
man before him and he wished to secure that power
for the Church, but he also wished to run no risks.
Perhaps a nobler motive governed him : " Go," he
said to Francis, " and pray God to reveal to you if
what you ask proceeds from His will, so that we
may know the Lord's will and grant your request."
It was then, according to the story, that Innocent
dreamed his dream of Francis propping up the fall-
ing church. By the dream, by the friendly cardinal,
or more likely by Francis's spirit, he was persuaded.
" Go, Brethren," he said ; " God be with you ; preach
repentance to all as He shall see fit to inspire you.
And when Almighty God shall make you multiply
in numbers and in grace, come back to us and we
will entrust you with greater things." Nevertheless,
the wind of the spirit could not be allowed to blow

90 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

where it listed, its business was to belly out the sails
of St. Peter's bark ; the tonsure was imposed on the
friars as a badge of ecclesiastical obedience, and a
protector at the Roman Curia was assigned to them
who should see that they did not stray from the
strait path (1210).

In this way the Franciscan Order began, with its
founder as the first minister general. From this
beginning the Order rapidly spread and multiplied.
Women, too, impelled by the same spirit, cut off
their hair, put on the religious dress untouched by
the dyer's hands, bade the world farewell, and fol-
lowed the lead of St. Clare. Others still — fathers,
mothers, breadwinners, high and low, whose duties
kept them in the world — were swept along by the
rushing enthusiasm, and banded together in the
third branch of the holy Order. Not content with
preaching in the cities and villages of Italy, the
friars swarmed to foreign lands. Some went to
France, Germany, England, Hungary, and others
oversea to convert the infidels in Spain and Syria.
Francis's passion inspired all the brethren. " Let us
all with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all
our thoughts, with all our strength, with all our
mind, with all our vigour, with all our power, with
all our affection, with all our bowels, with all our
desires, with all our wills> love the Lord God, who has
given us all His body, all His soul, all His life, and
gives them still to us all every day. Let us desire no-
thing else, wish for nothing else, let nothing else please
us or have any attraction for us, except the Creator,
the Redeemer, the Saviour, the one and true God."

THE FIKST DISCIPLES 91

Success, however, brought the seeds of evil with
it. It could not be otherwise. While the band was
small, the brethren warmed themselves at the fire of
their master's love ; they were content to beg day
by day their daily bread, and let to-morrow take
heed for to-morrow's needs; they were free and
independent. When they became numerous, when
their members were reckoned by hundreds and thou-
sands, their monasteries by scores, when they had
parcelled Europe into provinces, the Order necessa-
rily became so changed in degree as to be different
in kind. The first disciples were all zeal, enthusiasm,
and devotion, all imbued with their founder's spirit ;
but afterwards men of all kinds flocked in — shallow
men moved by the crackle of their own passing emo-
tions, worldlings and ambitious men self-forgetful
for the moment only, insignificant men swept up on
the great wave of hope. These later comers were
ennobled during a month, two months, or perhaps
three ; for the moment a hush came over their triv-
ial lives, and they breathed the air of the mountain-
tops, but then the feeble zeal died down, and they
became once more their common selves, f rocked, ton-
sured and girt with cords, but with the old appe-
tites in their bellies and their souls again set on the
things of this world. Francis might have anticipated
this danger, he might have seen that his rule was
for a chosen few, not for the many ; but, being a
lover, he hoped all things and believed all things.

After Francis's death the inner history of the
Order is the struggle between the enthusiasts and
the worldly-minded, or, if you will, between the

92 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

fanatics and the practical men. The Church did not
hold her hands off. She had her traditions, she had
her own long worked at and hard achieved stability,
she had outlived many passionate outbursts of re-
nunciation, she was skeptical of dreams, and looked
upon the doctrine of absolute poverty as moonshine.
In almost all things she had learned to temporize
with the world; and, at the same time, she fully be-
lieved in herself and she was conscious of her own
high aims. She saw that the Franciscan movement
was a great spiritual force; and she proposed to
make it serve her, for she had great need of service.
Little by little she assumed control. Even in Francis's
lifetime the changes in the Order began. Obviously
a vast monastic order with provincial generals, with
missions far and wide, needed at its head a man of
administrative ability; a poet, a dreamer, a lover can
inspire men with enthusiasm, but he does not know
how to govern. Francis perceived this, and ap-
pointed, first, Peter of Catania, and next, the cele-
brated Elias of Cortona, to be acting minister gen-
eral in his stead.

But a change of minister general, a more meth-
odical administration in the affairs of the Order
could not avail against the assaults of the world.
The three points of attack were the three human
instincts — for privileges, for learning, and for pos-
sessions. Francis himself, the Knight of Christ,
rushed foremost to the defence. Once some of the
brethren expressed a wish for a special privilege
from the Pope to preach without episcopal license,
for the bishops sometimes refused it or kept the friars

THE FIRST DISCIPLES 93

idly waiting for days. Francis rebuked them with great
indignation : " You, Brothers Minor, do not know
the will of God and you do not let me convert the
whole world according to God's will ; for I wish to
convert the bishops by humility towards them, and
when they see our holy life and our humility towards
them, they will invite you to preach and to convert"
the people, and they will bid them attend the preach-
ing— better than your privileges that would lead
you to vainglory. If you were free from greed, — if
you induced the people to render to the Church all
her dues, then the prelates would invite you to hear
confession of their people — though you need not
vex yourselves about that, for if the people were
converted they would soon find confessors. For my
part, I want this privilege from God, that I never
have any privilege from man. My desire is to do
reverence to all, and in obedience to our holy rule
convert the whole world more by example than by
words."

On another occasion, at a meeting of the chapter
general at Santa Maria of the Portiuncula, where
five thousand brethren were assembled, some of the
scholarly and mundane friars went to Cardinal Ugo-
lino and asked him to persuade Francis to take
counsel of the learned brothers and to be guided
sometimes by them, and they cited the rules of St.
Benedict, St. Augustine, and St. Bernard. When
the cardinal had repeated all this to Francis as a
sort of admonition, Francis took him by the hand
and led him to the brethren assembled in chapter,
and cried out passionately by the power of the Holy

94 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Ghost : " My brethren, my brethren, the Lord has
called me to follow the way of simplicity and hu-
mility ; verily He points out the way for me and for
those who wish to do as I do. And therefore I don't
wish you to name to me any other rule, not St.
Benedict's, nor St. Augustine's, nor St. Bernard's,
nor any way or manner of living except that which
God in His mercy has pointed out and given to me.
For God said to me that he wished me to be a new
covenant in this world ; and He did not wish to guide
us by any knowledge except by that. But by your
learning and your knowledge God will confound
you, and I trust in God's ministering devils, that
He will punish you by them, so that you shall re-
turn to your post in shame, willing or unwilling."

In the matter of property, too, Francis never
veered from his earliest purpose. To a questioner he
answered : " I tell yon, brother, this both was and is
my first intention and my final will (if the brethren
will hearken to me), that no brother should possess
aught except his frock, as the rule allows, with gir-
dle and drawers." As for their habitation, he said :
" Let them have little huts out of clay and boards,
and little cells in which the brothers can pray or
work for the sake of greater propriety and to avoid
illness. And they shall have little churches (they
must not have large churches made for the sake of
preaching to the people or for any other pretext),
for so there is greater humility, and it sets a better
example to go to other churches to preach. Because
if at any time prelates or clergy, religious or secular,
come to our abodes, the poor huts, the little qells,

THE FIRST DISCIPLES 95

and the small churches will preach to them, and they
will be more edified by these than by any words."

And in every way Francis (unless indeed it is a
negation of reason to follow the divine call to one's
own worldly abasement) followed his ideal with rea-
sonableness. Especially was he on his guard against
creating a hive of drones. In the solemn clauses of
his testament he says : " I used to work with my
hands and I wish to continue to do so, and I want
all the other brothers to work at some honourable
trade. Those who have none should learn one, not
for the sake of getting pay for their work, but in
order to set a good example and to avoid idleness."

But in spite of his example and his efforts, in
spite of his passionate exhortations, Francis saw the
glorious vision, once so clear and definite, of a band
of pure-hearted, high-souled, self -consecrated men,
joyously working together to establish God's king-
dom on earth, fade before his eyes ; yet even in
this he had the holy joy of sharing his master's cup :
" My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? "

In the course of nature ideal hopes share the fate
of transitory beauty that must die, but there is some-
thing tragic beyond ordinary measure in this poet's
powerlessness to give permanence to his beautiful
dream, as in the impotence of a mother to save the
life of her only child. Francis yearned over his young
ideal dream, but even his passion could not save it.
Nevertheless Francis's boyish gayety of spirit never
wholly left him ; on the very day of his death, as his
poor, starved, emaciated body lay on its pallet, he
admitted " that he had greatly sinned against brother

96 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

ass." And then, with great joy of body and mind,
as his friends say, he stretched his hands towards
God and said, " Welcome, Sister Death," and passed
from the shipwreck of this world to God.

His true disciples maintained his cause and fought
hard against the rising tide of worldliness ; but per-
haps they, too, were partly to blame, for they forgot
the saying of their master's Master : " My kingdom
is not of this world."

CHAPTER IX

THE EMPEROR FREDERICK II (1194-1250)

Whatever in those climes he found

Irregular in sight or sound

Did to his mind impart

A kindred impulse, seem'd allied

To his own powers, and justified

The workings of his heart.

WOEDBWOBTH.

Qua entro e lo secondo Federico.

Inferno, x, 119.
Here within is the Second Frederick.

IN that aspect of society which the preceding chap-
ters dwell upon, the foundation on which society
stands is the Bible, and Innocent, Joachim, and
Francis, priest, prophet, and saint, represent three
constituent parts of it, — the Law, the Apocalypse,
the Gospels, — and these three types (if I may speak
generally) are severally affected each by its own part
only and are blind to the others ; but society at large
was affected mainly by the Bible as a whole. It of-
fered a common spiritual country, a common patriot-
ism of the soul to all Christian men. It was the one
great common possession that united the Christian
world. The Bible impressed itself with authority,
for it contained the truth ; and truth demands not
reason, not discussion, not the free play of a mind
that goes round and round an hypothesis, not ex-
amination and criticism, but obedience. The Bible
was the basis of Christianity; and Christianity pro-

98 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

fessed to look upon life as a short stretch of road
through a 'vale of tears with an everlasting heaven
or hell at the end of it. The Bible stood over against
the world; it was the witness to the divine constitu-
tion of the Church, whose sacraments alone could
open the door to salvation. To the devoutly ortho-
dox, to hermits on mountain-tops, to elderly monks
in comfortable monasteries, to bishops when in the
pulpit, the world swarmed with temptations. Pleas-
ure, beauty, charm, gayety, knowledge, riches, and,
above all, woman, were so many snares to catch the
unwary. In short, a man's duty was to kneel before
the Bible, to accept the theological explanation of
the universe, to shun worldly pleasures and intel-
lectual curiosity, to honour those by whose hands
the sacraments of salvation were administered, and
to render obedience to the Church.

Eternally opposed to this Christian theory is what
we loosely are wont to call the epicurean or pagan
conception of life. The piety of an epicurean pa-
gan is to revel in beauty, to enjoy pleasure, to
woo lovely woman, to drink from the vine- wreathed
cup, to be fleet of foot, muscular and skilful in
body, to pursue the threads of thought as far as
the mind can reach, and to be grateful to what-
ever gods may be. Such paganism regards life
as a glorious opportunity for happiness and intel-
lectual adventure. In its eyes human society is not
a theological affair, but an organization of mankind
on the basis of force and the principles of expediency,
with the object of giving the human will-to-live its
fullest scope. Paganism has no sacred books; the

THE EMPEROR FREDERICK II 99

universe is its bible, and the obedience it exacts is
that men shall seek, shall explore, shall inquire. Its
creed consists of the current hypotheses of science.
During the nine centuries of triumphant Christian-
ity in western Europe since Constantine had pro-
claimed his conversion, the pagan idea of life had
gone out of fashion, it had become soiled, distorted,
mutilated; but its spirit still existed, and still upheld
the principle of life for life's sake. Nowhere prob-
ably did it exist in its plenitude, but here and there
in patches and bits it asserted itself, and at one
point or another its disciples raised their heads.
Poets, bohemians, students praised wine, woman, and
song, — Ave Bacche ! Ave Venus ! Militemus Veneri !
. . . Dum vivimus vivamus ! philosophers asserted
the rights of reason ; kings and princes struggled to
maintain the idea of the civil administration of so-
ciety. Out of all such pagan protestants, the man who
in the thirteenth century most completely embodies
their conception of life, is the Emperor Frederick II.
This much-admired and much-hated man made a
deep impression upon his contemporaries, and even
after he has been dead hundreds of years, scholars
take sides for and against him with passions worthy
of Guelfs and Ghibellines in their most truculent
mood. In the eyes of his admirers he flies before his
generation like Lucifer guiding the day ; and in the
eyes of his enemies he is a self-indulgent Epicurean
struggling to shake off all the restraints that Christ-
ianity and civilization sought to impose upon him.
His character is explained by his birth and education.
He inherited the cruelty, the energy, the vigour, and

100 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

the ambition of his father, Henry VI ; but these qual-
ities were neutralized and in many respects overborne
by his Italian inheritance. By birth, through his
mother Constance, he was a Sicilian, and by temper-
ament he was essentially a Sicilian in the somewhat
melodramatic sense which we of English traditions
give to that word. He was adroit, dissembling, lux-
urious, self-indulgent, impetuous, passionate, and
false.

At the time of his imperial coronation, 1220, Fred-
erick was twenty-five years old. He was then a man
of maturity and experience. Even at seventeen it was
said of him that " the fruits of maturity had antici-
pated the flowers of youth." From babyhood he was
bred in the midst of intrigue, treachery, and the
alarms of war. From six to fourteen his boyhood was
passed under the care of Sicilian prelates or in the
custody of German adventurers. From the former
he learned that one may be a priest, even an arch-
bishop, and yet be double-dealing ; from the latter
that bluff and brutal soldiers can be as false as the
most slippery priest. From both he must have
learned that the usual resources of statecraft are brib-
ery and mendacity. In matters of less moment —
grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, astronomy — Fred-
erick probably had lessons from Arabic masters.

Sicily had been for centuries a borderland between
different civilizations, different religions, different
races. Italians and Greeks, Romans and Carthagin-
ians, Byzantines and Arabs, Christians and Mussul-
mans, Normans and Saracens, had fought, had com-
promised, had stamped, one after the other, their

THE EMPEROR FREDERICK II 101

marks on the lovely island. The Saracens, during
their long dominion, had not been intolerant ; and
the Norman conquerors coming from afar, finding
contrasting opinions, contrasting customs, contrast-
ing creeds, had been tolerant, politic, skeptical. Ital-
ians, Greeks, Arabs, and Jews lived cheek by jowl
in peace. The Normans were a small military caste
who imposed order, levied taxes, directed affairs, and
maintained the feudal system. Within these limits
they let their subjects follow their own tastes and
usages, both in civil matters and religious. Greek,
Latin, and Arabic were the official languages ; French
remained for a time the language spoken at court,
while Greek and Arabic continued to be the common
speech of the people side by side with the young
Italian. Saracens held important civil positions j
Saracen workmen were employed in the royal service ;
Saracen physicians and astrologers frequented the
court.

In intellectual development the Arabs were supe-
rior to the Latins. They were the great students of
Greek philosophy. On their conquering path through
Syria and Egypt they found all philosophers deep in
Aristotle, and they adopted Aristotle as the source
of knowledge. They translated him from Syriac
texts. Averroes, who " made the great commentary "
on Aristotle, was well known to the scholars in Pa-
lermo, and learned Arabs of Cordova and Seville
were in familiar intercourse with their brethren at
the Norman court. Among these philosophers, dis-
creetly concealed from the Mussulman bigots, there
was much skepticism of current religious beliefs.

102 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Some denied the resurrection of the body, some
doubted the immortality of the soul, some, anticipat-
ing David Hume, maintained that the phenomena of
cause and effect are merely sequences. Many
thought most meanly of women ; some intimated that
all religion was the result of imposture. Such were
the ideas that circulated among learned men with
whom the precocious lad must have been on familiar
terms.

The physical aspect of Palermo also played its
part in Frederick's education. A sensitive, emotional,
intellectual boy could not have been untouched by
the prodigal beauty about him. Nature had been
bountiful, and the Norman kings, especially Fred-
erick's clever, cultivated grandfather, King Roger,
had done their best to make their capital exquisite.
On the curving shore, where the beautiful green gar-
den of the Conca d'Oro, encircled by austere hills
and guarded by Monte Pellegrino to the north,
meets the gaudy blue of the bay, Palermo sat like a
coquette, glittering and gracious, tempting all comers
to stay. Travellers from Cordova and even from Bag-
dad, found in her everything good and beautiful to
heart's desire. Within the city, castles, palaces,
churches, mosques, shops, and houses, gay in oriental
colours and shapes, ranged in picturesque succession ;
each quarter of the town showed an individual come-
liness. The streets were spacious, the alleys broad ;
and the king's palaces, gardens, and parks, strung in
long sequence, beautified the city. The decorations
within the churches were unrivalled, excepting only
by those of St. Mark's in Venice. Santa Maria, a

THE EMPEROR FREDERICK II 103

Greek church, was rich as an emperor's reliquary ;
its walls were lined with coloured marbles, decorated
with gold, and garlanded with foliage of green mo-
saics. Nevertheless the Royal Chapel strove to outdo
it ; below and above, floor, walls, arches, vaults, pul-
pit, and dome, according to their several dignities,
were overlaid with mosaics of marble and golden glass,
with porphyry and serpentine. All sorts of colours
— red, white, cream, buff, black, blue, pink, indigo,
cobalt, green, and gray — blended and contrasted in
soft, luxurious, loveliness. Hard-by, the cathedral of
Palermo raised her noble dimensions; and yet, in
spite of her magnificence, she was excelled by her
sister at Monreale. Attached to these cathedrals were
great monasteries and cloisters where the denizens
of paradise might wander and deem themselves at
home.

The city itself was all life and bustle, colour
and gayety. On a fete day the ladies, cloaked in
their elegant mantles of silk enriched with gold em-
broidery, artfully veiled, odorous with sweet per-
fumes, their shoes worked in gold, their finger tips
rosier and eyebrows blacker than in nature, rendered
the inside of the churches still more gorgeous and
interesting. Fountains and springs freshened the air
and greeted the thirsty. Oranges and lemons scat-
tered their fragrance to the breeze ; palm trees shook
their murmurous leaves ; stone pines contemplated
their own solitary shadows; fruit trees and blos-
soming bushes decked the gardens ; and outside the
town, beyond the straggling suburbs, wild flowers
filled the fields, and here and there bloomed

104 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,
Others whose fruit burnish'd with golden rind
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only, and of delicious taste.

On the banks of the brooks and canals Persian
cane rustled in the wind, while plump squashes
dozed in the sun ; and along the river Oreto the
lazy mill-wheels turned. The poet said truly that
Palermo was " Altera mellifluens paradisus," another
Eden flowing with honey.

Frederick was essentially a child of Palermo.
Precocious in body and in mind, he learned early to
enjoy the grace and delicacy of oriental ways, the
refinement and charm of Arabian civilization, while
familiarity with Greek dissent and Moslem disbelief
taught him religious tolerance and skepticism. In-
timacy with a race inferior in strength and social
position if superior in delicacy, whose usages con-
cerning women were very different from those
approved by the Latin Church, naturally gave him
loose notions about morality of sex. The Norman
court had always been censured by the austere, both
Mohammedans and Christians, but the sinners were
powerful and the moralists weak ; and though Fred-
erick's ecclesiastical preceptors may have attempted
to teach him the professed morality of the Church,
they could not change the ideas that prevailed
among the fashionable nobles of Palermo. The
royal palace instinctively drew back from any ascetic
theory. To keep Frederick in the path of virtue
they married him at fourteen to a Spanish lady,
much older than he, a sister of the King of Aragon.

THE EMPEROR FREDERICK II 105

At seventeen he became a father; he was then
already a man, old far beyond his years. By the
time of his imperial coronation his experience of life
had been wide and hard ; he had become quite skep-
tical of truth, loyalty, or honesty, but he was full
of youthful self-reliance, vigour, and resolution.

In person Frederick was of middle height, rather
square of figure, comely of face, at least in youth,
blond like all the Hohenstaufens, and he had the
reddish hair so notable in his grandfather, Barba-
rossa. With his quick intelligence, his agreeable
southern manners, and his rare personal charm, he
readily attached friends to him; but, like other
clever, skeptical men, he relied too much on his
wits and underrated the value of character, and by
his perfidy inspired his enemies with such fear, dis-
trust, and hatred that they fought him and his
sons and his sons' sons to the death.

A man of this character, independent and self-
reliant by nature, bred in the borderland between
opposing civilizations, accustomed from earliest boy-
hood to differing religions, none of which apparently
exercised complete control over conduct, when
seated on the imperial throne and acknowledged to
be titular head over secular Christendom, could riot
possibly live at peace with an ecclesiastico-political
corporation, which was built upon the sacred books
of the Jews, and claimed supremacy even in secular
affairs. A clash between the two was inevitable.
At what time and under what circumstances would
be a matter of accident.

When Frederick in 1212 went upon his adventur-

106 ITALY IN THE THIKTEENTH CENTURY

ous expedition across the Alps to oust the Guelf
Otto from the throne of Germany, he needed Inno-
cent's help, and promised with alacrity everything
that Innocent asked. He avowed that he owed life
and land to the Papacy, acknowledged papal suzer-
ainty over the Sicilian kingdom and papal sover-
eignty over the provinces of central Italy, swore to
keep the Empire and his southern kingdom separate,
agreed to do the Pope's bidding with regard to the
Lombard League, and finally ^assumed the cross. All
his life long he was enmeshed in this web of vows
of his own spinning. The immediate cause of the
rupture between him and the Papacy was the prom-
ised crusade. Throughout the German campaigns
Frederick had the full support of the Papacy, and
when the war was over and Germany pacified, he
received the imperial crown from Honorius, Inno-
cent's successor. The Papacy had paid the consid-
eration, it had amply fulfilled its side of the bargain,
and now demanded that Frederick should fulfil his.
According to the usages among honest men, the
Papacy was clearly within its right.^ It was irrelev-
ant to the matter in hand whether the Papacy was
governed by religious motives or whether it was
thinking of the advantages that would accrue from
a crusade, or merely calculating that it would be
well to let the Emperor spend his money and strength
across the seas remote from what might be a dan-
gerous proximity to the papal provinces. A bargain
is a bargain.

All the world was agreed that it was Freder-
ick's duty to go on a crusade. The troubadour Elia

THE EMPEROR FREDERICK II 107

Cairel expressed the general sentiment when he
wrote : —

Emperaire Frederic, ieu vos man,
que de son dan faire s'es entremes
vassals, quand a a son seignor promes
so, don li faill a la besoigna gran ;
per qu'ieu chantan — vos voill pregar e dir
que passetz lai on Ihesus vole morir,
e noill siatz a cest besoing bauzaire.

Emperor Frederick, I tell you,
That a vassal is busy at work on his own harm,
When he has made a promise to his lord
And does not keep it when the need is great ;
Wherefore I sing — I wish to beg you and to say
That you cross thither where Jesus willed to die,
And do not prove false to this need.

Frederick first assumed the cross in 1215 ; other
crusaders went, but he did not go. He promised, pro-
crastinated, and postponed, he alleged reasons, pre-
texts, excuses, — he was making ready, he was nearly
prepared, his ships were laying in provisions, his
soldiers buckling on their belts and whetting their
swords, he was on the brink of starting, — but this,
that, and the other thing, to his vexation, consterna-
tion, and despair, barred his way, like an abyss.
From 1215 to 1220 he busied himself with establish-
ing his authority in Germany ; from 1220 to 1227
he was engaged in doing the same thing in Sicily.
It was true that the cause of civil government stood
in great need of Frederick's presence. In Germany
there was the Guelf faction to be put down, malcon-
tents to be appeased, partisans to be rewarded; in
Sicily there were Moslem revolts to be crushed, de-

108 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

fiant barons to be reduced to obedience, and rebel-
lious cities to be brought under the royal rule. But
the fact remained that during all these years Fred-
erick was occupied about his own affairs and neg-
lected the cause of God and the Church.

The gentle Honorius was a man of peace, and
contented himself with exhortations, prayers, scold-
ings, and menaces ; to which Frederick continued to
reply — os ingentia loquens — in his flowery Sicil-
ian fashion : " The sepulchre of Our Lord is in the
hands of Infidels ! Oh, horrible wickedness, oh, pite-
ous spectacle ! Touched to the heart by grief and
shame, day and night we think of speedy succour
and we are preparing right royally the ships and
galleys that the crusade needs." At last, moved by
a sense that public opinion was beginning to run
against him and by knowledge that the dissensions
among the Saracens would smooth his path, he had
an interview at San Germano in July, 1225, with
ambassadors from the Pope, and, sealing the treaty
with his golden seal, pledged himself to sail in Au-
gust, 1227, under penalty of calling down upon him-
self and upon his realm the ban of the Church. And
as he was now a widower, his first wife having died
three years before, in earnest of his bargain he mar-
ried lolande, titular queen of Jerusalem, a daugh-
ter of the doughty French soldier of fortune, John
of Brienne, and assumed the crown and royal title.

CHAPTER X

GREGORY IX AND FREDERICK II (1227-1230)

Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow. — Romeo
and Juliet, Act i, Sc. 1.

THE gentle Honorius died, an infirm old man, in
March, 1227. Clouds were rolling up thick on the
horizon, and it was evident that St. Peter's bark
must take on a new pilot without wasting a mo-
ment. The very next day the cardinals elected
Ugolino, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, a near relation
to Innocent III, and gave him the pontifical title of
Gregory IX.

Ugolino had been elevated to the cardinalate by
Innocent, and had long held important positions in
the Curia. He had conducted delicate diplomatic
missions to the German adventurers " of damnable
memory " in Apulia, and had won a high reputation
for personal bravery. For eighteen years he had
been accustomed to Innocent's bold, dictatorial, far-
reaching policy ; he had been used to see Rome ex-
alt and depose emperors and kings as well as meaner
men, and he chafed sorely under the timid, peace-lov-
ing gentleness of Honorius. His biographer says that
he was a " dignified, handsome man, of keen mind
and tenacious memory, learned in the liberal arts as
well as in civil and canon law, and endowed with a
copious, Ciceronian eloquence, a zealot for the Faith,
a school of virtue, a lover of chastity, and an exam-

110 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

pie of holiness." Honorius said of him that he " was
set up by God's hand in the Church's garden like a
cedar of Lebanon, upright with the height of con-
templation, sweet with the fragrance of virtue, sound
with the sincerity of honesty, and that he not only
held up by his strength the house of God but also
beautified its outside by the purity of his good re-
pute." Frederick, also, had paid him compliments
in earlier days when he was appointed papal legate
in Lombardy: "Let the Roman Church rejoice,"
he said, "let us rejoice, because a man of honour,
true-sighted in religion, pure in life, most eloquent,
endowed with virtues and with learning, has been
appointed."

Gregory was primarily a statesman, a man of af-
fairs, and though a devout man did not disdain
methods purely political. That could not have been
otherwise, for the Roman Curia was not the chapter
of a rural cathedral ; the cardinals were not free to
wander in a bird-haunted garden, to listen to the
bells calling to matins and vespers, or to discuss the
controversy between St. Bernard and Abelard ; they
had to transact the business of Christendom. Pious
people like Jacques of Vitry, who visited the Roman
Curia, were scandalized: "he found many things that
went against his soul, for the cardinals were occupied
with business and the affairs of this world, with kings
and kingdoms, with law-suits and quarrels, to such
a degree that they scarce suffered anything to be
said about spiritual matters." Yet these same car-
dinals had religious feelings ; they had a great respect
for men of true religion. Gregory, in a special way,

Alinari, phot.

GREGORY IX
Sacro Speco, Subiaco

GREGORY IX AND FREDERICK II 111

reverenced Francis ; on the death of Cardinal Colonna,
the first protector of the Order, he took the vacant
place, and became a very father to the brethren,
especially to Francis, who was young enough to be
his son. He used to urge Francis to take care of him-
self : " Brother, you do wrong not to take better care
of yourself, for your life and your health are very
useful to the brethren, as well as to others and the
whole Church. When your brethren are sick you
have pity on them, and you are always kin'd and
tender to them, so you ought not to be cruel, to
yourself in your own great need. I therefore com-
mand you to get yourself taken care of and looked
after." It was Gregory who canonized Francis and
bade Thomas of Celano write his life ; and he even
thought of entering the Order. For Clare, the first of
the Franciscan sisters, he entertained sentiments of
tenderness, reverence, and affection. In his troubles
he turned to her for comfort: "Such bitterness of
heart " (he writes to her), "such tears, such immense
sorrow has come upon me that if I could not find
the consolation of worship at the feet of Jesus my
spirit would fail and my soul melt away." Never-
theless, in spite of his admiration for sanctity and
unworldliness, Gregory was at heart a proud prelate ;
and a long life had not cooled his courage or lowered
his pride. His pulse beat as quick, his anger flashed
as fierce, as if he had lived all his life in the saddle
with harness on his back.

At the opening of his pontificate Gregory found
the political situation very unsatisfactory. Under
Honorius's feeble management the towering fabric

112 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

of papal power had weakened and disintegrated. The
Emperor, and not the Pope, was now the central
figure in European politics, and he was assuming
more and more the domineering policy of his father,
Henry; more and more he was encroaching on the
rights of the Church, more and more ominous were his
actions. At every point of contact between the eccle-
siastical and imperial systems, the Pope felt a pressure
full of menace. The two heirs of Imperial Rome,
the two claimants for the primacy over Europe, stood
face to face, like two fencers with crossed swords,
each feeling the other's guard and trying to divine
and anticipate the other's meditated thrust.

The main matter that confronted Gregory on his
accession was the crusade. For that Innocent had
planned and prayed; for that Honorius had spent
years of pious and inefficient labour; for that Greg-
ory himself had preached and exhorted. The crusade
now depended wholly on Frederick. The expeditions
to Syria and Damietta (1217-1221) had been fail-
ures because Frederick had not gone in person; and
another attempt without his personal presence would
have been madness. Frederick's tongue had robbed
the Hybla bees of their sweetest honey, but his actions
were extremely suspicious. His delays had put the
Church in a worse and worse position, and himself in a
better and better. Before his imperial coronation he
had delayed for three years and had seated himself
firmly on his German throne; after the coronation
he had delayed over five years and had made himr
self absolute monarch in his Sicilian kingdom. From
smooth and sugared speech, flowery as the meadows

GREGORY IX AND FKEDERICK II 113

round Palermo, he had changed to a saucy demean-
our and acts of insolence. In other matters, too, be-
sides the crusade, he had shown hostility to the
Church.

Of these matters one was the investiture of bishops
in the kingdom of Sicily. Frederick had sworn to
install all bishops canonically elected; but he vio-
lated this oath in the case of a half-dozen sees. He
had sworn that the clergy should not be taxed; and
now he levied taxes or exacted forced loans. He had
confirmed the Pope's title to the papal provinces of
central Italy, nevertheless, in the duchy of Spoleto
he was, to say the least, oblivious of his covenant:
he continued to call the German pretender to the
duchy by the ducal title, and treated his family with
marked consideration. In the march of Ancona he
demanded military service; and, finally, in Viterbo,
within St. Peter's Patrimony, barely a day's ride
from the Lateran Palace, he commanded the com-
mune to furnish knights, equipped and on horse-
back, to attend him. In these papal territories the
Emperor had, perhaps, the imperial right to demand
provisions for his troops on the march, but he had
no further rights. If he were to continue to extend
his exercise of sovereign prerogatives, who could say
whether he would stop short of absolute dominion?

Of still more ominous significance was the prac-
tical union of the Empire and the kingdom of Sicily.
The Papacy felt itself ringed round by levelled
spears. Frederick had pledged himself to keep the
two separate and apart; he had sworn that on re-
ceiving the imperial diadem he would resign the

114 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Sicilian crown to his eldest son, Henry. But upon
inauguration to the imperial office he not only did
not resign the Sicilian crown, but by vote of the
German princes he secured for that son the inherit-
ance to the Empire. When the Pope protested,
Frederick replied that the election to the imperial
succession had taken place " while we were absent
and ignorant of what was going on." He was not,
it is true, present at the moment of the election, but
he had expressed his wishes beforehand, he had con-
voked the diet that elected Henry, and he rewarded
the princes who voted for Henry. His protestation
of ignorance was flimsy to the point of insolence.

One other important matter further strained the
relations between the two potentates. The Roman
Curia was not an easy gull; on the contrary, it
was prone to err on the side of over-ready suspicious-
ness. It suspected Frederick's ambition. Gregory
and the older cardinals well remembered the fears
excited by the Emperor Henry thirty years before;
and Frederick certainly seemed, at least to suspicious
eyes, to be treading in his father's footsteps. He
was master in Germany, he was master in Sicily;
if he were to be master in Lombardy, too, the Pa-
pacy would be lost, and, therefore, the churchmen
in Rome were always vigilant to mark any possible
menace to Lombardy. At first Frederick had re-
frained from touching the very delicate matter of
the relations of the Lombard cities to the Empire.
But immediately after the agreement with Honorius
in 1225, in which he had muzzled the Church by
his promise that he would start upon the crusade at

GREGORY IX AND FREDERICK II 115

the end of two years, he published a summons
throughout the Empire to attend an imperial diet
at Cremona in March, 1226, for the purpose (so it
was said) of considering ways and means for the
crusade.

This convocation of an imperial diet at Cremona
was a clever move. To all outward appearances the
Emperor was but doing his bounden duty. The Lom-
bard cities had no right to protest, because Lombardy
was indisputably a province of the Empire, and the
crusade was a matter of public and universal concern.
Nor could the Papacy protest with decency, for the
Papacy was continually urging the Emperor to make
ready for the crusade. Nor could any one object to
the selection of Cremona as the meeting-place, al-
though Cremona was the most passionately imperial
city in Lombardy (not even excepting Pa via), because
the city was most conveniently situated, midway be-
tween Germany and Sicily. Nevertheless, the anti-
imperial cities did not hesitate to put themselves
nominally in the wrong, because it was clear to the
blindest that, underneath this fair show of prepara-
tion to carry out his crusading vow, Frederick was
stretching out his hands to lay hold of Lombardy.
Milan, Piacenza, Brescia, Mantua, Verona, Bologna,
and their fellows pledged themselves to mutual de-
fence, and renewed in its essential character the old
Lombard League that fifty years before had with-
stood and vanquished Frederick Barbarossa. The
confederate cities adopted a bold and rebellious plan ;
they seized and fortified the narrow Alpine valleys
north of Verona, near the Brenner Pass, through

116 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

which the high-road to Germany led, and refused to
let Prince Henry, the imperial heir, and his attendant
German barons and prelates, proceed upon their way
to Cremona. This rebellious act prevented Germany,
the main member of the imperial union, from taking
part in the diet. Some skirmishes followed ; acts of
wanton violence were committed ; and angry passions
on both sides seemed to threaten civil war. The Em-
peror raged, but he could do nothing ; he put the
rebellious cities under the ban of the Empire, and
the maimed and impotent diet broke up.

The League had gained its end ; the Emperor had
been foiled in his project, he might lay his ban, but
he could not enforce it. There was nothing for him
to do but go home and plot revenge as best he might.
He went home and devised a crafty stroke. He sub-
mitted his quarrel with the Lombards to the arbitra-
tion of the Pope and cardinals. It was familiar history
that Barbarossa's defeat was due to the alliance be-
tween the Papacy and the Lombard League, and
here Frederick thought he saw a way to start a rift
in that alliance. By papal authority (granted indeed
merely for use against the malevolent generally, and
before the confederate cities had committed any re-
bellious act), the bishops attendant upon Frederick
at the diet had excommunicated the Lombard League.
That excommunication necessarily involved a con-
demnation of their conduct ; and, indeed, no one
could deny that the League had committed an overt
act of rebellion. If the Pope acted as arbitrator, he
would be morally obliged to give judgment in Fred-
erick's favour, and thereby endanger his friendly

GKEGOKY IX AND FREDERICK II 117

relations with the Lombards ; if he refused to act, he
abdicated the high office of universal mediator which
the popes had always loudly claimed as theirs, and
cut himself off from the privilege of intermeddling
in international affairs. The craftiness of the offer
of arbitration was enhanced because the Lombard
League was constrained to accept the Pope as arbi-
trator; he was the proper international judge, he had
always been their friend, and they could not repudi-
ate him now.

The Roman Curia was on its guard, it saw the
predicament into which Frederick wished to put it,
and rose to the occasion. Honorius refused to act.
Frederick was persistent and urged him again. But
by that simple move the Pope's position had been
materially strengthened. He had refused to act (all
men would agree), in order to avoid the possible
criticism that he could not be an impartial arbitra-
tor. Now the duty was forced upon him ; and Fred-
erick would be estopped by his own act from disput-
ing the justice of the award whatever it might be.
Honorius accepted the office, and rendered a decision
singularly like that of the arbitrator in La Fontaine's
fable, who gave a shell of the disputed oyster to each
of the two litigants and swallowed the oyster him-
self. Both sides should put away all ill-will, grant full
pardon, release prisoners and restore captured pro-
perty; the cities of the League should revoke all
laws against the Church or to the detriment of eccle-
siastical liberties; they should swear to observe the
decrees of the Lateran Council ; they should estab-
lish and enforce statutes against heretics ; and they

118 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

should, at their own cost, provide and maintain four
hundred knights for the Emperor's service upon the
coming crusade during a period of two years, but
these four hundred knights should be under the pro-
tection of the Apostolic See. The full significance of
this last phrase appears in the sequel.

Frederick thus came out of his first tentative ex-
ercise of imperial authority in Lombardy balked and
outwitted. The Lombards had renewed their league
and had learned their strength. The Papacy had
behaved with propriety; it had authorized the ex-
communication of the Lombards when they appeared
as a hindrance to the crusade (but in so general a
way as to give them no ground of offence) ; and in
deciding the quarrel between them and the Emperor
it had adjudged everything in its own favour. Fred-
erick had been forced to take the position that his
expedition to Lombardy had been solely for the bene-
fit of the crusade ; and now that he had the promise
of four hundred knights he could not but admit that
he had got just what he wanted, and he had no ex-
cuse left for not going on the crusade. Everything
indicates that at this point Frederick felt that he
must go on the crusade or lose authority at home and
prestige abroad. Such was the political situation when
Gregory ascended St. Peter's chair.

And the political situation was only a part of a
greater complexity, in which moral factors made the
most dangerous element ; behind the inherent in-
compatibility of Papacy and Empire, behind their
respective ambitions, lay the absolute contradiction
of the ideas for which the two men stood. Under the

GKEGORY IX AND FKEDERICK II 119

most favourable circumstances, a gaunt, ascetic, re-
ligious, spiritual-minded priest, like Gregory, and a
skeptical, intellectual man of the world, of refined
tastes and gross appetites, like Frederick, could not
understand one another ; and as the two were en-
throned as chieftains of opposing conceptions of
society and both were covetous of the debatable
future, they faced each other as rival warders do on
hostile borders. Their respective partisans were as
furious as they. The poets and wits at Frederick's
court assailed the Church with lampoons and epi-
grams, they scribbled scurrilous prose and verse
against priests and monks, high and low. Pier della
Vigna, a judge, a diplomat, and a poet, was not
ashamed to write a long jingle of angry denunciation
to gratify his royal master : —

Est abominabilis praelatorum vita
quibus est cor f elleum linguaque mellita ;
dulce canit fistula eorum, et ita
propinant ypomenis, miscent aconita.

The life of holy prelates is abominably funny,

Their hearts are full of venom while their tongues are

dropping honey ;

They pipe a pretty melody, and so approach discreetly,
And offer you a cordial, mixed with poison, very sweetly.

The translation is about as good as the original ;
the only stab that the poet has omitted is to attribute
his Latin to the teachings of the clergy. And even
in these abominable verses, Pier della Vigna admits
that Gregory is a good, holy, apostolic man.

No such concessions to Frederick's character were
made by the Church party; between fact and fancy

120 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

they depict a figure to be shuddered at. Followers
of Joachim crossed themselves and prayed to be
saved from Antichrist. Part of this Frederick brought
upon himself, for he snapped his fingers in the face
of respectable Christendom. He kept a harem, " am-
ator amplexorum." Even on his military campaigns
a band of pretty women accompanied him in palan-
quins. They were guarded by eunuchs, and their
wardrobes were taken care of by Saracen officials.
Other customs, innocent in themselves, but damnable
because of their origin, he got from his Arabian
education. He had a menagerie of wild beasts, lions,
leopards, panthers, and such. He made use of camels
and dromedaries as beasts of burden. He possessed
an elephant given him by the Soldan of Egypt.
Dancing-girls were installed at his court. At an en-
tertainment he gave in honour of the Earl of Corn-
wall, two young Saracen girls of great beauty,
balancing upon large, round globes, rolled them in
every direction, clapping their hands and singing the
while, taking postures like our ballet dancers, and
beating cymbals in a duet, one girl striking the
cymbal that the other held, or playing castanets,
and whirling about with amazing agility. Here was
matter to keep monastic gossip busy for a year. He
kept Saracen troops in his pay ; he liked them be-
cause they were out of reach of excommunication.
He had ambassadors from the Soldan to dinner, and
invited the Sicilian bishops to meet them. He em-
ployed Arabian physicians, and by their advice for
long periods of time he would eat only one meal a
day, but he ate that meal without regard to Lent or

GREGORY IX AND FREDERICK II 121

fast days, and he took a bath every day, not except-
ing Sundays : " From this [the Roman priests said]
it is plain that he holds at naught the commands of
God and the sacraments of the Church." He used
to search the Scriptures for passages such as Psalm
XLIX, 12, Man is like the beasts that perish, to
show that the soul does not survive the body ; and
he would threaten to bring the Church to a state of
apostolic poverty, so that pope and cardinals should
be beggars and go on foot.

Worse even than his licentiousness and heathen-
ish ways were his blasphemies : " If the God of the
Jews had seen my Sicily he would not have chosen
this beggarly Palestine for his kingdom, . . . Only
fools believe that the God who created nature and
all things was born of a virgin ; nobody can be born
except by conception preceded by the union of man
and woman ; ... no man ought to believe anything
except what he can prove by natural reason ; . . .
There have been three impostors who sought to gain
power over their fellows by religion, Moses, Jesus,
and Mohammed, and one of them was hanged " ; and
of the viaticum, " When will this tomfoolery stop ? "
Such stories, whether true or false, had much to give
them colour, and in the time of the death grapple
with the Church did Frederick more hurt than the
defection of ten thousand men.

The second day after his consecration, Gregory
wrote to Frederick bidding him, with "a pure heart
and faith unfeigned," make ready for the crusade,
and a week later wrote a second letter; and again,
as the date fixed by Frederick's pledge drew near,

122 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

he wrote a third time, in a style that showed great
familiarity with the Apocalypse, and exhorted him
to a life of aspiration and virtue. The Emperor
showed every outward mark of obedience. He gath-
ered together ships, provisions, and troops at Brin-
disi. He took advantage of the papal insistence to
include the clergy in a new tax levy, and then went
to Brindisi himself. The crusaders, principally Ger-
mans, had already assembled. It was a motley
company, there was lack of organization, and, in con-
sequence, delay. Owing to great heat, bad air, and
ignorance of sanitary measures, disease broke out,
and many fell ill and died. At last, however, the
army set sail, and a little later, on September 8, the
Emperor himself. He had sailed, however, barely
fifty miles, when he shifted his course, and put into
the harbour of Otranto, and there disembarked.

News of the Emperor's defection spread from
Syria to England, carrying dismay. On the Syrian
coast most of the crusaders hurried back aboard the
ships on which they had just come and sailed for
Europe. In England men shook their heads, and re-
minded one another how, on the night of St. John
Baptist's Nativity, the Crucified God had shown
himself in the heavens ; how they had seen his body
stretched upon a shining cross, spattered with blood
and marked with the thrust of the lance and the
print of the nails. At the time they had judged it a
sign that God was propitiated by the devotion of His
people, now they perceived it bore witness against
the Emperor for the insult he had done to God.

The Pope was at Anagni when the news came.

GKEGOKY IX AND FKEDEKICK II 123

Fourscore years could not stay his sudden wrath.
He waited neither for explanation nor excuse. He
was no graven image, like the marble lions of the
episcopal chair in the cathedral, that showed their
fangs but could not use them ; with alert step he
mounted the pulpit and cursed Frederick with the
curse of the Church. It was a grave moment for
Christendom ; its two heads, to whom were com-
mitted the care of bodies and the care of souls, were
avowed enemies. Both sides appealed to Europe,
sending letters to kings and princes. Gregory re-
counted Frederick's repeated promises and his re-
peated delays, his solemn oath at San Germano and
the excommunication which he had invoked on his
head in case of the breach of a single item in his
promised performance, and then the make-believe
start at Brindisi ; " How [shrieked the excited priest]
— his promises mocked, the ties that bound him
broken, the fear of God trodden under foot, the
reverence due Jesus Christ despised, ecclesiastical
censures flouted, the Christian army abandoned, the
devotion of Christendom flung away, the Holy Land
thrown back to infidels — to his own shame and the
shame of Christianity, he had gone back, lured and
charmed, to the wonted delights of his kingdom,
trying to palliate, I am told, the abjeetness of his
heart by frivolous excuses."

Frederick answered by a long defence of his con-
duct. He went into elaborate explanations of the
alleged breach of his San Germano oath; he had
kept, he said, his promises at all points; he had
started from Brindisi in good faith and had put

124 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

back into the harbour of Ofcranto for this reason
only, that he was very ill, and his nobles, as well as
the pilgrims who had just returned from the East,
had advised him, in view of the serious calamity his
death would be, not to run the risk. He asserted
that he had never abandoned his purpose of going
on the crusade, and that he should start in the fol-
lowing May.

Frederick perceived, however, that the narrow issue
between him and the Pope, as to whether he had
kept his San German o oath, was badly framed for
him. The Pope had chosen the issue on which to
make his attack and he had chosed shrewdly. On
that issue Frederick was not only on the defensive,
but also he was in the wrong on his own showing, as
all the world could see. He had not kept the letter
of his oath ; he stood in the predicament of having
invoked the ban of excommunication on his own
head. So he boldly dropped the petty question of
that particular issue and proclaimed that the real
issue between the Pope and him was between secular
and ecclesiastical dominion. Was the Church or was
she not to be the universal mistress ? No sentimental
pity concerning the Holy Land, no dissatisfaction
over ecclesiastical affairs in Sicily and Apulia, no
question of usurped jurisdiction in Romagna or St.
Peter's Patrimony, set the two powers at odds (he
said), but the fundamental question whether the
civilization of Europe should stand on a secular or an
ecclesiastical base. If Frederick had kept his temper,
he would have done better, for all the sovereigns in
Christendom were jealous of the Papal pretensions;

GREGORY IX AND FREDERICK II 125

but he fell into a mighty passion, hot-blooded Sicilian
that he was, and attacked the Roman Church bitterly.
He charged her with greed, usury, simony, and hy-
pocrisy. He said that her speech was smoother than
oil, sweeter than honey, but that she wa^ a blood-
sucker. The Curia was the root and origin of all
evil; the Roman prelates were wolves in sheep's
clothing. He bade all kings and princes be on their
guard against the avarice and wickedness of the
Church. In order, however, to get his case fairly be-
fore the public opinion of Europe on the broad issue
of civil or ecclesiastical sovereignty, and to escape the
narrow issue on which he was sure to be condemned,
it was absolutely necessary to go on the crusade.
Only by so doing would it be possible to deprive the
Papacy of its vantage-ground. He, therefore, sailed
for Acre in June, 1228.

Frederick was above all things a politician. All
his actions as a crusader were determined by policy.
He thought no better of Christianity than of Mo-
hammedanism, if as well; and on the whole pre-
ferred the Arab civilization to the Latin. He never
had any intention of fighting his way to Jerusalem.
A knight-errant like Richard Coeur de Lion, or a saint
like Louis IX, might follow mad fantasies if they
chose ; but Frederick conducted his expedition solely
with reference to his fortunes in Europe. He re-
garded the pilgrims to Jerusalem as fools (the
Mohammedans reported that he spoke of them as
pigs), and he did not propose to play the fool himself
for their sakes. He recognized that the public senti-
ment in Europe required the head of the Holy Roman

126 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTUKY

Empire to go on a crusade, and so, under the political
exigencies of his situation, he had assumed the cross ;
but he meant to go at a happy juncture when his
affairs at home were in a favourable condition and
when affairs in Syria were such that Jerusalem could
be won by diplomacy. Frederick did not propose to
go to war with his friends for the sake of his enemies.

Some thirty years before, on the death of the great
Soldan Saladin,the hero of Walter Scott's Talisman,
the Saracen Empire had split in pieces, and now, as
was to be expected, the states of Cairo, Damascus,
and Aleppo were at hostilities. Al Malik al Kamil,
the Soldan of Cairo, or, as the Christians called him,
the Soldan of Babylon, had marched into Syria and
taken possession of Jerusalem, which was a part of the
dominions of the Soldan of Damascus. Wishing to
strengthen himself, he made overtures to Frederick,
and invited him to come to Syria, offering under
certain conditions to cede Jerusalem. It was doubt-
less for some such opportunity that Frederick had
been waiting. Now it had come. Diplomacy, as he
had hoped, was going to accomplish his ends. Under
these circumstances a large army would have been a
detriment, as it would have aroused the Soldan' s sus-
picions. So he took but a scanty force with him.

On his arrival in Syria he found the Church party
bent on thwarting him. Franciscan friars, the Knights
of the Temple, the Knights of St. John, the clergy,
and finally the Patriarch of Jerusalem, all opposed
him. Frederick, however, kept on excellent terms
with the Soldan and the two arranged matters be-
tween them. Frederick's shrewdness, his suavity,

GKEGORY IX AND FKEDEEICK II 127

his care not to offend Mohammedan sensibilities,
aided by the pressing political needs of the Soldan,
smoothed the way for a treaty of peace. The Sol-
dan was in a situation somewhat analogous to Fred-
erick's; he had to face a bigoted party among the
Saracens which was opposed to any treaty with the
Christians and especially to the surrender of Jeru-
salem, a holy city, second only in their eyes to Mecca;
and he, too, was denounced and reviled for friend-
ship with infidel dogs. Sailing in the same boat the
two came speedily to terms. The Soldan ceded Jeru-
salem (but with the reservation of free access for
Mohammedans to the Temple, known to them as
the Mosque of Omar), Nazareth, Bethlehem, and
sundry villages along the route from Jerusalem to
the sea, for a period of ten years. The Emperor
thereupon hastily entered Jerusalem, clapped the
crown on his own head, turned round, and hurried
back to Italy.

Frederick had accomplished his purpose; and he
had done so in the teeth of clerical opposition. The
Church had condemned him at every step : she had
denounced his going upon a crusade while he was
under the ban of excommunication, she had de-
nounced his friendship with the Soldan, she had
denounced him for leaving the Temple open to
Mohammedans, she had denounced any treaty with
the infidels. Nevertheless, he had redeemed his pro-
mise, he had delivered Jerusalem, and he had shifted
the issue between him and the Papacy from the petty
question of an unperformed vow to the broad ques-
tion of secular or clerical domination.

128 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Meanwhile, in Italy matters were getting far
beyond denunciation. Immediately after his excom-
munication the Emperor vented his anger in revenge-
ful acts. He levied taxes on the clergy of his king-
dom. He intrigued with Roman nobles, so that at
their instigation the mob insulted the Pope in St.
Peter's and drove him out of Rome. He revoked
his grants confirming to the Papacy the Italian pro-
vinces, which not only he but also Otto IV, Charle-
magne, and Pippin had granted, and reclaimed them
for the Empire. He appointed the pretender to the
duchy of Spoleto his imperial vicar during his
absence; and this vicar led an army of invasion
into the March of Ancona. The Pope retaliated to
the best of his power. He forbade the Sicilian clergy
to pay taxes; he excommunicated the imperial in-
vaders; he preached a crusade against the enemies
of religion, collected money from England, Scotland,
Ireland, France, and Spain, obtained troops from
Lombardy, including, according to Frederick, the
four hundred knights adjudged by Honorius to go
on the crusade, and sent an army under John of
Brienne, the Emperor's father-in-law, across the
Neapolitan border.

The Emperor's return arrested at once the tide
of papal success. His army of crusaders from the
Holy Land, with a Saracen contingent from The
Kingdom, easily drove back the papal troops and
reconquered the invaded districts. Nevertheless
Frederick did not wish to carry the war further.
Such a war was certain to find no favour in the eyes
of Europe. He was the aggressor, his partisans had

GREGORY IX AND FREDERICK II 129

invaded papal territory ; and though he denied that
he had given them authority, appearances were
against him. The Pope was a very old man and
would not live long, and a new pope could not be
more inimical and might well be more friendly.
More than all, Frederick knew that before he came
to a decisive struggle with the Papacy he must re-
duce Lombardy to obedience. Lombardy was the
key to the situation; whichever side could control
the riches and fortunes of Lombardy would conquer.
The Pope, too, had good reasons for not continuing
the war. Hostilities against a crusader, begun while
he was away in Syria for the liberation of Jerusalem,
seemed irreconcilable with such a text as, " I say
unto you, love your enemies." Besides, the war was
horribly expensive; Rome was disloyal; and the
Emperor's army was better than his. So peace was
made in the summer of 1230. The Pope readmitted
Frederick to communion with the Church, and all
his men, except such as had invaded papal territory.
That was an unpardonable sin. Frederick, on his
part, swore to give satisfaction to the Church, to for-
give the Lombards, to restore confiscated property, to
recall banished prelates, to levy no taxes on the clergy,
and to let alone ecclesiastical elections. In fact,
Frederick practically accepted the Pope's conditions.
Such a treaty shows the power of the Church. A pope
with the ecclesiastical organization of Europe at his
back was a dangerous enemy. He could levy taxes
from Rome to Edinburgh, from Lisbon to Prague ;
he could send out a swarm of friars to dissolve the
ties of allegiance, to bribe friends, to suborn traitors,

130 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

to stir up old enmities. Few clerks and no monks
could be trusted. The lessons of Barbarossa and of
Henry IV were not lost on Frederick ; he would not
enter on a death grapple until he should first be
master of Lombardy.

CHAPTER XI

PROVENgAL POETRY IN ITALY

Quoy qu'on tient belles langagieres,
Florentines, Veniciennes,
Assez pour estre messaigieres,
Et mesmement les anciennes ;
Mais, soient Lombardes, Rommaines,
Genevoises, a mes perilz,
Piemontoises, Savoysiennes,
II n'est bou bee que de Paris.

FRANCOIS VILLON.

Although one speaks fine languages,
Florentine, Venetian,
Enough to be ambassador,
And Latin, too, and Grecian ;
But be it Lombard or of Rome,
Genevan (so hold me in derision)
Or Piedmontese or Savoyard,
There 'a nothing like Parisian.

PEACE with the Pope left Frederick free to busy
himself with the civil affairs of his kingdom, and
gives us leisure to turn from politics and the alarms
of war to our real concern, to the first dawn of that
new life of the Italian spirit which in its maturity
filled Europe with its glory and still draws all the
world to Italy. Frederick's court was the home, or
rather the hostelry, of this new spirit, the candle-
stick on which the night-dispelling candle first was
set. While the Roman Curia held that all thought
not based upon the Bible was hurtful or superfluous,
and St. Francis condemned all learning on the
ground that it leads men away from God and salva-

132 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

tion, Frederick and his courtiers cultivated the state
of mind necessary to catch the intellectual sparks
that flew upward at Toledo and Cordova and in the
sunny chateaux from Avignon to Carcassonne, as
Achates, when the Trojan band was shipwrecked on
the Libyan shore, caught in tinder the sparks struck
from the flint and fed the nascent flame with leaves
and twigs till a camp-fire warmed their wet and
weary limbs, —

Suscepitque ignem foliis, atque arida circum
Nutrimenta dedit, rapuitque in fomite flammam.

The intellectual influences that came to Italy — I
speak of those that have no direct concern with
theology or law — were of two sorts : one, the love of
philosophy and science, came from the Moors and
Arabs, the other, the love of poetry, from Langue-
doc and Provence. Up to this time the Arabs had
been superior to the Christians in civilization. At
Cordova a number of enlightened princes had en-
couraged astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and
philosophy; but orthodoxy among the Mussulmans
as well as among the Christians was opposed to free-
dom of thought, and Averroes was the last of the
distinguished scholars of Cordova. He died in the
year of Innocent's accession to the Papacy. The
fanatics, conscious perhaps of a need of sterner
qualities in the struggle of Islam with Christendom,
quenched the light. In Egypt, as well, Frederick's
friend the Soldan Malik al Kamil, was a patron of
learning and poetry; but in Egypt, also, the inva-
sions and menaces of the Christians were ruinous to
culture. East and west, storms and darkness lowered.

PROVENCAL POETRY IN ITALY 133

At this juncture Frederick stepped forward and
grasped the torch which the soldans and emirs,
spent runners, had carried as far as they could. He,
as the Mohammedans perceived, was "a man of
acute intelligence, and of learning, fond of philo-
sophy, logic, and medicine, who (so sympathetic did
they find him) professed Christianity as a blind."
Certainly in his tastes for things intellectual he re-
sembled these Mohammedan princes more than he
did Henry III of England or St. Louis of France.
He knew Italian, French, German, Latin, Greek,
and Arabic ; he could write, and he was interested
in everything. Even his enemies acknowledged his
native wit and rare intellect. Naturally he welcomed
scholars, whether Arabs, Moors, or Jews, to his
court. He had a special liking for philosophy and
metaphysics; and these foreign scholars were the
only men with whom free discussion was possible.

A set of questions which he propounded to an
Arabic scholar, Ibn SaVin, has come down to us:
"Aristotle states the existence of the world ab
eterno, what are his arguments? What is the goal
of theology ; and what preliminary sciences are ne-
cessary? Supposing that the soul is immortal, what
evidence is there of its immortality?" It appears
from a Mohammedan source that Frederick himself
accepted the hypothesis, approved by Aristotle, that
the world had always existed, that there never had been
a creation ; and the Christians said that he denied
the immortality of the soul. He undoubtedly be-
lieved in astrology, and perhaps he took an interest
in occult sciences. In those days such interests spoke

134 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

the free play of the mind. For a time he had
Michael Scott at his court. This mysterious person-
age had acquired at Toledo a reputation for scholar-
ship by translating Aristotle; but rumour asserted
that " of a truth he knew the trick of necromantic
frauds " and his fame as a wizard so outdid his fame
as a scholar that he found his way to a lower .depth
of Dante's hell than his imperial patron.

The torch of free thought, however, was doomed
to be quenched for a time; but the torch of poetry
was passed on, and, the winds of heaven favouring,
kindled the fire of Italian poetry. There were, un-
fortunately, reasons enough why speculative thought
that came from a hostile civilization should be re-
jected ; but, fortunately, there were also prevailing
reasons why one southern land should teach a neigh-
bour its first lessons in poetry, why one Romance
tongue should hand on to a sister her stock of
forms, her ways of saying pretty things. And so it
was that the spirit and form of Provengal poetry
passed on to Frederick's court.

Provengal is the generic name given to the dia-
lects (for these were several) spoken in southeastern
France and in the adjacent country south of the
Pyrenees. The language was derived very directly
from Latin, and differed markedly at many points
from French. It was the " langue d'oc," in distinc-
tion to the " langue d'oil " of northern France and
to the " lingua di si" of Italy. Its poetical literature
had begun several generations before, and by the
beginning of the thirteenth century was the most
considerable in Europe. It had attained so high

PROVENCAL POETRY IN ITALY 135

an excellence and was so abundant that there was
enough at home and to spare ; and full of youth and
health, it went abroad to try its fortune in another
land.

Ever since the days of Julius Caesar, Provence and
Languedoc had been in close relations with Lom-
bardy and Liguria. Vessels plied between Marseilles
and Genoa; sturdy traffickers crossed the Alpine
passes or skirted the gulf by way of the riviera.
Italian merchants and money-dealers frequented the
cities of southern France; usurers passed between
Asti, Turin, and Cahors; ecclesiastics and monks
went to and fro. Where traders and bales could go,
poetry could go, too. The names of famous trouba-
dours became household words in Lombardy. Even
in Dante's time they were freshly remembered :
Bertran de Born, Folquet of Marseilles, Arnaut
Daniel, Giraut de Bornehl. Bertran de Born, lover
of war and singer of martial songs, by malicious in-
stigation stirred up the quarrel between Henry II of
England and his eldest son, — " Ahitophel did not
do more between Absalom and David," — and so in
the infernal pit of the sowers of discord his headless
trunk swings his head at arm's length like a lantern.
Folquet, at first an over-amorous boy, abandoned
his rhymes and his lady-loves to become a monk, a
bishop, and a leader of the crusade against the
Albigensian heretics ; and at last in Paradise (such
different fates befell these poets) " shone like a ruby
smitten by the sun ... and gladdened Heaven with
his voice." Giraut de Bornehl is esteemed by critics
to-day the best of all the troubadours, while Arnaut,

136 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

whose sentences are obscure and rhymes difficult, is
abased by these same critics, but all in vain ; for
Dante met Arnaut in Purgatory, — leu sui Arnaut,
queplor e vau cantan, — and Dante, whose little fin-
ger is thicker than the loins of all the critics, says :
" Arnaut surpassed them all, poets of love or writers
of romance ; let the fools talk who think that Giraut
de Bornehl was better than he."

These Provencal poets, even to-day with our stores
of English and Italian poetry, have a certain aro-
matic, far-away fragrance (like flowers in a prim,
old-fashioned garden), enhanced perhaps by our
sympathy with their brief and romantic flowering-
time. No doubt if one were to read many of them
to-day they would seem monotonous and insipid ;
but nobody does read them except Mistral and the
young poets of Aries and Avignon, and, maybe, a
scholar here and there. By the world at large they
would all have been suffered to drift into the for-
gotten past, were it not for Dante, who carries them
into the haven of immortality, as a great ship, sailing
securely over a waste of waters, picks up wrecked
mariners by the way and takes them safe aboard.

Preceded by the fame of Proven gal poetry, it was
natural that the troubadours should cross the Alps
into Lombardy, especially when the storms of perse-
cution swept over Languedoc. Peire Vidal, Raimbaut
deVaqueiras, Guilhem Figueira, Aimeric dePehulgan,
and others, frequented the courts of the politer
nobles. Like honey bees they came smeared from
the flowery fields of Toulouse and Roussillon, and
scattered the fructifying pollen along the banks of

PROVENCAL POETRY IN ITALY 137

the Po and the Adige. These troubadours and their
poetry so stirred the young Italians to emulation
that it became the fashion for them to write in Pro-
vencal, a canso or a sirventes, or even the Italian-
born sonnet. Of these provenzaleggianti, twenty-
five have been counted. Among them was Percivalle
Doria of Genoa; but the most famous by far is
Sordello, whose haughty and disdainful soul Dante
and Virgil saw in Purgatory watching them after
the manner of a couchant lion.

Sordello, compassed murkily about

With ravage of six long sad hundred years, —

was born near Mantua — io son Sordello delta tua
terra, he says to Virgil — about the year 1200. He
first emerges from mediaeval darkness in the city of
Verona among the gay courtiers in attendance upon
Count Riccardo di San Bonifazio, one of the great
nobles of that region, who with the aid of his friends
had driven the Montagues and their partisans from
the city. Here, in his salad days, Sordello took some
part in the elopement of Count Riccardo's wife,
Cunizza, who was sister to the black-haired, black-
hearted, Ezzelino da Romano. Whether the elope-
ment was due to politics or love is not certain ; but
Cunizza's marriage had certainly been political.
Three of the principal noblemen of the March of
Treviso had attempted to establish peace, like a
tripod, on three marriages ; Ezzelino da Romano and
Salinguerra of Ferrara married sisters of Count
Riccardo, and he married Cunizza. The plan failed.
The ties of affinity snapped like dry withes, and the
brothers-in-law were soon at war again. Cunizza's

138 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY'

position was difficult ; apparently she sided with her
brother and fled from her husband to his protection.
Oblivion, dimly lighted by beggarly biographers and
Dante's starry references, hangs over both Cunizza
and Sordello. The situation was romantic. She was
a high-spirited, devil-may-care lady, as became her
lineage ; he was a poet, young and impressionable.
And it is probable that, either at the time of the
elopement or a little later, they fell in love with one
another; but neither was constant. Sordello married
another lady, and Cunizza started on an adventurous
career (shared with divers husbands) that ended in
repentance, pity, and generosity. Her last recorded
act is the making her will at Florence in the pal-
ace of Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti, April 1, 1265.
Cavalcante's son, Guido, was then a little boy, and
as the family palace was not far from the baptistery
(il mio bel San Giovanni) it may be that, some
weeks later on the eve of Pentecost, the distinguished
old Ghibelline lady and the young poet-to-be went
in there (either to say their prayers or to see the
celebration of baptismal rites) at the very moment
when the priest was making the sign of the cross
and blessing a little baby nomine Patris, Filii, et
Spiritus Sancti, while the proud parents, Messer
Alighiero di Bellincione di Alighiero and his wife,
stood by, and perhaps Cunizza heard the inarticulate
voice that was to carry her name throughout the
world from century to century. However that may
be, Lady Cunizza da Romano makes a link between
the Provencal poets, both of Languedoc and Lom-
bardy, and the two most famous poets of the dolce

PKOVENCAL POETRY IN ITALY 139

stil nuovo of Tuscany, Dante and his friend, Guido
Cavalcanti ; and perhaps this association in Dante's
mind served as the ladder by which she climbed into
the Paradiso, where she shines next to Folquet of
Marseilles. As to Sordello, it seems that the terrible
Ezzelino took his conduct in ill part, so he fled west-
ward across the Alps. There he wandered from
court to court, composing Provencal poetry, and
falling under the spell of many a " doussa enemia."
His friends reckoned them to be a hundred.

You can believe

Bordello foremost in the regal class
Nature has broadly severed from her mass
Of men, and framed for pleasure, as she frames
Some happy lands, that have luxurious names,
For loose fertility ; a footfall there
Suffices to upturn to the warm air
Half germinating spices.

Most men who write in a language not their own
by right of birth pay the penalty by being soon for-
gotten ; but one poem of Bordello's pleased Dante,
and Dante presented Sordello to Robert Browning
and the world. Commentators dispute whether this
was a long didactic poem on right living or a short
elegiac poem on the death of a friend. The first
discourses on ideal conduct (which to Sordello is con-
duct pleasing both to God and man, " qui a Dieu et
al segle platz "), on the origin of evil, on keeping
good company, on the respect due to ladies, poor
knights and minstrels, and on kindred matters. The
other poem is a short lament on Lord Blacatz, a
Provengal patron of troubadours, and is famous for
its main conceit : " Let all who wish for valour eat

140 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

of Blacatz's heart ; let the Emperor Frederick, if he
would conquer the Milanese, let Louis of France, if
he would enforce his claim to Castile, let Henry of
England, if he would recover Normandy." What-
ever the cause Sordello interested Dante and lives
immortal in the Purgatorio.

This influence of ProvenQal poetry, so overpower-
ing in many respects, was due not merely to its own
richness and high development, but in part to the
low estate of poetry in Italy. The fountains of the
Proven9al Helicon flowed down into the plains of
Lombardy as the waters of Lake Como flow down-
ward to the Po. In fact, thirst for poetry had little
to quench it in Italy. There was some Latin poetry.
Latin had the authority of ancient Rome and the
weight of the Church at its back ; it was the lan-
guage of all prose worth writing. But the dignity,
got from these high uses, prevented a poet from
being natural. Who could write a ballad in Latin to
his mistress's eyebrow ? For love or friendship Latin
was already a dead language. Sundry hymns of the
Church were the only tolerable Latin poems, written
at least in Italy, since Boethius. On the other hand,
it was difficult, if not impossible, to be grave and
dignified in the young, unfledged Italian. Men who
had in mind ecclesiastical ritual or official ceremony
kept in the old Latin close, and shunned the fresh
woods and new pastures of the vernacular idiom.
Pietro da Eboli, a courtier poet of southern Italy,
wrote a Latin epic in honour of the Emperor Henry
VI. Literary monks, like Abbot Joachim of the
Flower, wrote stray verses. One of Joachim's poems,

PROVENCAL POETRY IN ITALY 141

written a hundred years before the Divine Comedy,
tells of going down into hell and of ascending to
paradise. It is poor enough ; and yet two lines of
it enable the imagination to conjure up the vision
of peace that floated round the old man's head as
he wrestled with the wild texts of Revelation : —

Ibi loca spatiosa illustrata lumine

Et in ipsis gens beata fruens pacis requie ;

There are spacious places illustrious with light

And in them blessed people enjoy the quietness of peace.

And churchmen, such as Innocent III, for example,
wrote hymns to the Virgin. But these men were not
poets. No inner compulsion obliged them to sing.
They wrote Latin verses, because it was the fashion.
If we look for beauty, passion, imagination, or a
poet's dreaming, in these poems, we shall come away
empty-handed ; and it would hardly be worth while
to mention them, except that Latin poetry straggled
on through the century and produced at the end
that beautiful and touching poem, Stabat mater
dolorosa.

In Italian itself at the beginning of the century
there was no poetry of any kind. This barrenness
was due for the most part to the tardy development
of the language. Loyalty to her ancient tongue, the
exponent of religion and law in all Christendom,
clogged Italy's advance. The spoken language had
long ceased to be Latin ; it was a degenerate speech,
slowly shaping its rude forms to fit nice ideas and
polite usage, but its progress was slow. In fact, Ital-
ian could hardly be called a national language, but

142 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

rather a group of idioms differing among themselves,
and none strong enough to assert a mastery. Dante,
near a hundred years later, describes how even then
Italy was divided into dialects. He reckoned fourteen
different provinces, each with its own speech. Lom-
bardy, Tuscany, the Marches of Treviso, Ancona,
and Genoa, Rome, Apulia, Spoleto, and the rest,
had severally their individual characteristics. Even
in the same province cities differed from each other.
In Tuscany, Arezzo had one patois, Siena another ;
in Lombardy, the cities of Ferrara and Piacenza
had different dialects, and Milan differed from Ve-
rona. No two cities really spoke alike, and all spoke
in an uneducated way. The Genoese thrust the let-
ter z into all their words ; the Forlivesi spoke a soft,
simpering speech, like women ; the Veronese dropped
the last syllable ; the people of Treviso pronounced
f in place of v / those of Parma said monto instead
of multo. Sometimes there were different dialects in
different quarters of the same city, as in Bologna,
where the inhabitants of Borgo San Felice and those
of the Strada Maggiore did not speak alike. The
idioms of the towns near the frontier, like Trent,
Turin, and Alessandria, were so interlarded with
foreign borrowings as not to be really Italian ; and
mountaineers and remote peasants were unintelli-
gible. And among all these there was no command-
ing dialect that could claim the right to precedence
and impose itself on all Italy, as a common language
for the learned and the elegant. If this was true in
Dante's time, it must have been vastly worse at the
beginning of the century. Naturally poets who fre-

PROVENCAL POETRY IN ITALY 143

quented the nobility and wished to express refined
sentiments, nice metaphors, or gross compliments in
befitting words, turned to a language, developed for
these very purposes, in which princes and even kings
had written poetry. These dialects that Dante enu-
merates so scornfully could not render the artificial
forms and subtle conceits that courtiers aspired to.
And so, from many reasons, it came about that the
poetry of chivalry, of courts, of lords and ladies and
their hangers-on, which proceeded from the feudal
organization of society, moved on triumphantly and
made the Provencal tongue and its ways fashionable
in Italy, while the native language was still unripe
to produce a poetry of its own.

CHAPTER XII

THE SICILIAN SCHOOL OF POETRY (1225-1266)

E 1 Sicilian!,
Che fur gia primi.

PETBABCH.
And the Sicilians
Who were once the first.

With a puling infant's force,
They swayed about upon a rocking horse,
And thought it Pegasus. Ah, dismal-souled !
The winds of heaven blew, the ocean rolled
Its gathering waves — ye felt it not. The blue
Bared its eternal bosom. But ye were . . .
. . . wed to musty laws.

KEATS.

THE poets and poetry of Provence had prepared the
way so well that, when Simon de Montf ort, Folquet
of Marseilles (the renegade troubadour), and their
myrmidons had trampled down the blithe careless-
ness of Toulouse and Beziers, overthrown the gai
saber, and driven out the Muse of Poetry, Italy of-
fered her a refuge and a home at the court of the
Emperor; and there she dwelt (in Italian dress but
with "Provencal blood in her veins") all the time
that " fortune remained favourable to the illustrious
heroes, Frederick Caesar and his noble son Manfred."
And with the fall of the Hohenstaufens, — for she
too had accomplished her destiny, — the Muse of
Provencal poetry died.

The Emperor himself, his sons Enzio and Man-
fred, — pulcherrimus et cantor et inventor cantio-

THE SICILIAN SCHOOL OF POETRY 145

num, — Pier della Vigna his especial favourite, Ja-
copo da Lentino the notary, Guido delle Colonne the
judge, Rinaldo d' Aquino, and many a gallant noble-
man, wrote poetry; and so famous did the royal
court become as the home of Italian poetry that poets
from north and south, from Tuscany, Apulia, and
Sicily are accounted a school of the court ; and as the
court was the court of the Sicilian kingdom, —
though the Emperor in fact passed his time on the
mainland, at Capua or at Foggia, and not in Sicily,
— it was known as the Sicilian court, and these Ital-
ian troubadours as the Sicilian school, and their
poems as Sicilian poetry. The word Sicilian conjures
up too much — nature enriched by art, asphodels,
wild yellow blooms, roses that yield their dearest
scent to love-sick winds from across the sea, shep-
herds piping rival songs, and the death-defying
echoes of Theocritus; but none of these fanciful
imaginings apply to the Sicilian school. The name
is Sicilian, the language Italian, the spirit and the
form all Provencal ; nature finds no place.

There was, indeed, some verse written outside the
influence of the court, in places remote from fashion,
where nobody knew Provencal poetry. Rhymesters
of local fame, bards of the village or the town, wrote
after their rustic fashion to please unlettered audi-
ences. These poets composed communal verses, reli-
gious ditties, didactic rhymes, or love-songs. They
had no sops to throw to oblivion ; and there are none
but a scanty band of scholars to remember that they
ever existed. But there is a single exception, which
makes it necessary to mention them. A Sicilian poet,

146 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Cielo dal Camo, wrote a poem of alternate strophes,
in which a lover woos a lass and she feigns to deny.
The poem begins with the lover speaking : —

Rosa fresca aulentisima c' apar' in ver la state,
le donne ti disiano pulzelle, maritate ;
trami d' este focora, se t' este a bolontate.

Thou sweetly-smelling fresh red rose

That near thy summer art,
Of whom each damsel and each dame

Would feign be counterpart ;
Oh ! from this fire to draw me forth

Be it in thy good heart.

(Dante Gabriel Rossetti.)

Throughout, the lady protests too much, and in the
end, after the bold lover has plighted his troth on a
Bible (stolen from the village church), she yields.
The reason that this poem should outlive the life
allotted to its fellows is hardly to be looked for in
itself, or in the unprudish touch of nature in it, or
even in the pretty floral syllables, — " rosa fresca au-
lentisima," — but in Dante's treatise On the Vernac-
ular Speech, for there he quotes the third line of the
poem. And here the imp of irony may grin, for
Dante cites the line as an instance of the drawling
defects in the popular Sicilian dialect ; but Dante's
touch was instinct with life and communicated im-
mortality.

There is one poem, however, that needed neither
the fame of the royal court nor the touch of Dante
to preserve it. Its own charm and pathos bear it down
the centuries, the earliest of Italian poems and the
only one written before Dante that the world stops

THE SICILIAN SCHOOL OF POETKY 147

to read ; its writer was a man of genius, as high of
soul as Dante himself, and even larger of heart. St.
Francis wrote his canticle at a time when he was ill
at San Damiano, the nunnery outside Assisi, where
St. Clare and her sisters lived (1225). Her spirit
kindled his ; her presence filled his heart so to over-
flowing that he felt the divine need to express his
great love of God and of God's works. And yet,
though the poem proceeds from nature (if, indeed,
it be natural to have a passionate heart and to speak
from it), St. Francis had in his mind, or at least in
his memory, the great canticle of the Three Holy
Children: —

Benedicite, omnia opera Domini, Domino :
Laudate et superexaltate eum in secula.

Benedicite, sol et luna, Domino :
Laudate et superexaltate eum in secula.

St. Francis's canticle is less magnificent but far
more tender : —

Altissimu, onnipotente, bon signore,
tue so le laude la gloria e 1'onore et onne benedictione.
Ad te solo, altissimo, se konfano
et nullu homo ene dignu te mentovare.

Laudato sie, mi signore, cum tucte le tue creature

spetialmente messor lo f rate sole,

lo quale jorna, et aHumini per lui ;

et ellu e bellu e radiante cum grande splendore ;

de te, altissimo, porta significatione.

Laudato si, mi signore, per sora luna e le stelle,
in celu Fai formate clarite et pretiose et belle.

Laudato si, mi signore, per sor acqua,

la quale e multo utile et liumcle et pretiosa et casta.

148 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Laudato si, mi signore, per frate focu,

per lo quale ennallumini la nocte,

ed ello e bello et jucundo et robustoso et forte.

Laudato et benedicite mi signore et rengratiate
et serviteli cum grande humilitate.

Most Highest, almighty, good Lord,

Thine are the praises, the glory and the honour and all

blessedness ;

To thee alone, Most Highest, they belong,
And no man is worthy to utter thy name.

Praised be my Lord, with all thy creatures,

Especially Sir Brother the Sun,

Who brings the day and gives the light ;

And he is beautiful and radiant with great shining ;

Of the Most Highest he tells the tale.

Praised be my Lord for Sister Moon and the Stars,
In heaven thou hast wrought them bright and precious and
beautiful.

Praised be my Lord for Sister Water,

Who is very useful, and lowly and precious and pure.

Praised be my Lord for Brother Fire,

By whom Thou dost illuminate the night,

And he is beautiful and jocund and robust and strong.

Praise and bless my Lord and give thanks
And serve Him with great humility.

If St. Francis's hymn has neither the majesty nor
the high ecclesiastical quality that renders the Latin
canticle worthy to be chanted in the cathedral of
Notre Dame de Chartres, it bears witness to a holy
and humble heart, such as is only found in rare poets,
as (to choose an English instance) in William Cowper.

THE SICILIAN SCHOOL OF POETRY 149

With this exception, or with these exceptions (if
we are to include the poem of Cielo dal Camo) Ital-
ian poetry in its first period is Sicilian (1225-1266),
and it owes substantially everything, name and all,
to the Emperor and his court. The ecclesiastical pur-
itan, Pope Gregory, in his anger against Frederick,
uncharitably fixed his eyes on the misbelieving Jews
from Cordova, on the dancing-girls from Egypt, on
the harem and the eunuchs ; but had he been more
true to the memory of St. Francis and the first breth-
ren, joculatores I)ei, who were wont to go singing
like happy boys along the way, he would have got
a different notion of Frederick. He would have seen
lords and ladies gay on Arab horses, their hounds
straining in the leash, and the Emperor's falconers,
with falcons on their wrists, awaiting the signal to
let slip. And after the chase along the banks of the
Volturno or across the plains near Foggia, a sym-
pathetic ear would have listened with delight to the
nymph Echo sweetly waked, after a sleep of near a
thousand years, by courtly songs sung to the viol
and the lute.

Frederick's court was the cradle of Italian poetry ;
and yet one must not expect the passion or the high
romance of amorous youth, one must not hope to
hear such songs as Burns wrote to Mary Morison,
or Heinrich Heine sang to " Liebchen traut," or as
Palgrave collected in the Golden Treasury. Car-
ducci, the greatest Italian poet since Leopardi, says:
" But those courtly verses ! Those verses of the so-
called Sicilian school founded by Frederick II, those
verses, oh ! what wretched stuff they are ! " Their

150 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

defects, he says, are not the defects of youth, but
the senile stammerings of decrepitude. A poet is
hard to please. Dabblers in history must be more
just. One must banish from memory all the poetry
one has ever heard ; and then, the mind all blank,
remembering only the musty chronicles and the mel-
ancholy monastic poetasters, listen to the songs of
these Italian troubadours, and one may think, with
Dante Rossetti, that they are worth the while, that
their imperfections are coupled with merits, that
indeed, "these poems possess beauties of a kind
which can never again exist in art." At any rate
this is the upper reach of the main stream of Italian
poetry.

Of Manfred's poems little has come down to us ;
and as both he and his brother Enzio, and Pier della
Vigna, too, shall play their tragic parts later on, and
take all the space that I can spare to them, I pass
them by, and content myself with calling the roll
of minor poets: Jacopo da Lentino, Guido delle
Colonne, Rinaldo d' Aquino, Arrigo Testa, Jacopo
Mostacci, Mazzeo di Rico, Giacomino Pugliese, Rosso
da Messina, Percivalle Doria, Rugger o de Amicis,
Folco di Calabria, Tiberto Galliziani, Ranieri di Pal-
ermo, all of whom are best remembered because
they wrote poetry. For all these poets of the Sicilian
school a foreigner had better accept but one stand-
ard of dignity : the notice of Dante. Two, Pier della
Vigna and Manfred, have great places in the Divine
Comedy ; two, Frederick himself and Jacopo da
Lentino, are also named there, and so named as
never to be forgotten; and three, Jacopo da Len-

Giovanni Pisano

, phot.

LADY HAWKING

Panel from Fountain at Perugia

THE SICILIAN SCHOOL OF POETRY 151

tino, Guido delle Colonne, and Rinaldo d' Aquino,
are cited in the treatise De Vulgari Eloquentia. The
rest of them must remain — for they would take
us too far afield — enwrapped in their own trailing

Some of these poets were of noble family, others
not: the more important, Pier della Vigna, Jacopo
da Lentino, and Guido delle Colonne, were all law-
yers; others, such as Arrigo Testa and Percivalle
Doria, were what may be called podestas by profes-
sion, and led bustling political careers. But, except-
ing the Emperor, Manfred, and Pier della Vigna,
Dante is only interested in these men as poets. In
his treatise On the Vernacular Speech he is in quest
of an Italian, fit for literature, and more especially
for poetry (such as, after generations of writers,
the slowly achieved classics of a language furnish),
an Italian, "illustrious, cardinal, courtly, and curial,"
or, as we should say, sanctioned by the usage of
persons of the highest cultivation, correct and ele-
gant ; and on his quest he examines the local dialects
of Italy, criticises them, and, in order the better to
illustrate his meaning, refers to these poets. For in-
stance, in speaking of the dialect of Apulia he cites
Kinaldo d' Aquino and Jacopo da Lentino: "But
though the natives of Apulia commonly speak in a
hideous manner, some of them have been distin-
guished by their use of polished language, inserting
nicely chosen (curial) words into their canzoni, as
clearly appears from an examination of their works ;
for instance, ' Madonna, dir vi voglio ' (' Lady, I will
tell you/) by Jacopo, and ( Per fino amore vo si

152 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

letamente* ('for pure love I go so joyfully') by
Rinaldo."

Rinaldo, it seems, was a member of the celebrated
family of Apulia to which St. Thomas Aquinas be-
longed, and was one of the falconers to the Emperor,
as young noblemen sometimes were. As such he
must have gone on the imperial hawking parties,
and perhaps even helped the Emperor in the pre-
paration of his book on hawking, De arte venandi
cum ambus. Rinaldo, following the fashion then in
use among poets, exchanged poems with Jacopo da
Lentino, Ruggero de Amicis, Tiberto Galliziani, and
with the Emperor himself.

Here is a stanza of the poem that Dante quotes : —

Per fino amore vao si allegramente,
k' io non agio veduto
omo k' en gioja mi possa aparilgliare,
. e paremi ke f alii malamente
omo k' a ricieputo
ben da sengnore e poi lo vol cielare.
Perk* eo nol cielaragio
com altamente amor m' a meritato :
ke m' a dato a servire
a la fiore di tucta canoscienza
e di valenza,

ed a belleze piu k'eo non so dire,
amor m' a sormontato
lo core in mante guise e gran gioja n' agio.

For pure love I go so joyfully

That I have not seen

A man that in joy can equal me,

And methinks that badly fails

The man who has received

Benefice from a lord and will then conceal it.

THE SICILIAN SCHOOL OF POETRY 153

Therefore I will not conceal

How highly Love has favoured me :

For he has granted me to serve

The flower of all that 's known

And of excellence,

And beauties more than I can say.

Love has overcome

My heart in many a way and great joy I have of it.

Guido delle Colonne, judge, of Messina, is also
referred to in the De Vulgari Eloquentia ; " Let
us examine the genius of the Sicilian vernacular. . .
because we find that very many natives of Sicily have
written weighty poetry, as in the canzoni, 'Ancor
chel' aigua per lo focho lassi' (' Even though through
fire water forsakes its coldness') and 'Amor, che
lungiamente m' hai menato' (' 0 love, who long hast
led me')." The second of these begins: —

Amor, che lungiamente m' hai menato
a freno stretto senza riposanza,
allarga le tue redini in pietanza,
che soverchianza m' ha vinto e stancato :
ch' ho piu durato ch' io non ho possanza,
per voi, Madonna, a cui porto lianza,
piu che non far Assassino in suo cuitato,
che si lascia morir per sua credanza.
Ben e*ste affanno dilettoso, amare
e dolce pen a ben si puo chiamare.
Ma voi, Madonna, della mia travaglia,
che si mi squaglia, — prendavi mercide,
che bene e dolce il mal se non m' ancide.

0 Love, who all this while hast urged me on,

Shaking the reins, with never any rest, — -
Slacken for pity somewhat of thy haste ;

1 am oppressed with languor and f oredone, —
Having outrun the power of sufferance, —

154 ITALY IN THE THIKTEENTH CENTURY

Having much more endured than who, through faith
That his heart holds, makes no account of death.

Love is assuredly a fair mischance,

And well may it be called a happy ill :

Yet thou, my lady, on this constant sting,

So sharp a thing, have thou some pity still, —

Howheit a sweet thing too, unless it kill.

(Dante Gabriel Rossetti.)

Jacopo da Lentino, of Apulia, from his office
commonly called the Notary, besides the reference
to him in De Vulgari Eloquentia, is mentioned in
the Paradiso as one of the earlier poets who, caught
and tangled in an artificial manner (in contrast to
the school of the dolce stil miovo, the sweet new
style, to which Dante belonged), did not express
the natural sentiments that well up in the human
heart. Apparently the Notary was regarded as the
best of his school, and was therefore chosen by Dante
to represent it. Nothing of his life is known except
that he exchanged poems with Pier della Vigna and
others, and that he executed notarial acts in the
year 1233. He is a mere shadow, living a dim life
in the meagre allusions of Dante, and yet some of
his verses seem to deserve remembrance for their
own sake.

lo m' aggio posto in core a Dio servire
Com' io potesse gire in Paradiso,
Al santo loco, ch' aggio audito dire,

O' si mantien sollazzo, gioco e riso.

Senza Madonna non vi vorrfa gire,

Quella ch' ha bionda testa e chiaro viso,
Che senza lei non poterfa gaudire,

Istando da la mia donna diviso.

Ma non lo dico a tale intendimento

THE SICILIAN SCHOOL OF POETRY 155

Perch' io peccato ci volesse fare ;

Se non veder lo suo bel portamento,
E lo bel viso, e '1 morbido sguardare :
Che '1 mi terria in gran consolamento

Veggendo la mia donna in gioia stare.

I have it in my heart to serve God so

That into Paradise I shall repair, —

The holy place through the which everywhere

I have heard say that joy and solace flow.

Without my lady I were loath to go, —

She who has the bright face and the bright hair ;
Because if she were absent, I being there,

My pleasure would be less than nought, I know.

Look you, I say not this to such intent

As that I there would deal in any sin :
I only would behold her gracious mien,
And beautiful soft eyes, and lovely face,

That so it should be my complete content
To see my lady joyful in her place.

(Dante Gabriel Mossetti.)

His canzoni have variety of measure and are so ob-
viously written to music that in spite of their arti-
ficiality, they seem to come nearer to a natural form
of expression than the sonnets do : —

Madonna mia, a voi mando
in gioi li mei sospiri ;
ca lungiamente amando
non vi volsi mai dire
com' era vostro amante
e lealmente amava,
e per6 k' eo dottava
non vi facea sembiante.

Tanto set' alta e grande,
k' eo v' amo pur dottando ;
non ao per cui vi mande,
per messaggio parlando ;

156 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

un<T eo prego 1' amore,
a cui pregha ogni amanti,
li mei sospiri e pianti
vi pungano lo core.

My Lady mine, I send

These sighs in joy to thee ;
Though, loving till the end,

There were no hope for me
That I should speak my love ;

And I have loved indeed,

Though, having fearful heed,
It was not spoken of.

Thou art so high and great

That whom I love I fear ;
Which thing to circumstate

I have no messenger :
Wherefore to Love I pray,

On whom each lover cries,

That these my tears and sighs,
Find unto thee a way.

(Dante Gabriel Rossetti.) ,

So far, in spite of all his airs and graces, there is a
certain charm, almost a sort of eighteenth-century
courtliness in his verse, and nothing more artificial
or stilted than appears to modern readers in the
first English sonneteers, Wyatt and Surrey, or in
Cowley, for instance. But the desire to outdo his
rival poets, to show how dexterous he could be in
interweaving rhymes and juggling with words, leads
the Notary to a pass where he draws down on him-
self the criticism that Alceste gives to Oronte : —

Vous vous etes regie* sur de me*chants modeles,
Et vos expressions ne sont point naturelles.

THE SICILIAN SCHOOL OF POETRY 157

Ce style figure*, dont on fait vanite*,

Sort du bon caractere et de la ve'rite* ;

Ce n'est que jeu de mots, qu' affectation pure,

Et ce n'est point ainsi que parle la nature.

Indeed, the Notary at his worst outdoes Oronte : — •

Lo viso e son diviso da lo viso,
e per aviso credo ben visare ;
pero diviso viso da lo viso,
ch* altr'e lo viso che lo divisare ;
e per aviso viso in tale viso,
del quale me non posso divisare.

It is impossible in English, even letting sense (if
there is any) go by the board, to reproduce the play
on the unfortunate words, viso, dwiso, aviso ; but
the sonnet serves to show that the goal applauded
by Dante, to sing as the heart bids, was not the goal
set up by the Sicilian school. And, indeed, to ex-
press passion in poetry so that it shall seem to be
nature's doing is not to be expected from first
comers, for it is the highest achievement of art.
But it is not fair to leave the Notary with such dis-
paragement. Here is the beginning of another son-
net, whose sentiment if not its form connects the
Sicilian poet, through some roundabout inheritance
of poetical imagining, with the sovereign of Eng-
lish poetry : —

Amore e un disio che vien dal core,
per P abbondanza di gran piacimento ;
e gli occhi in prima generan P Amore
e lo core li da nutricamento.

Fancy in the heart is bred,

When great contentment therein lies ;

158 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

It is engendered in the eyes,
And by the heart is nourished.

The Emperor, though he played the sun among
these satellites and deserves the chief credit for
welcoming the Muse of Provence to his court, and
though Dante Rossetti says that one of his poems
has "great passionate beauty," seems to me much
less interesting as a poet than many of the others,
and I choose my specimen of his poems, not because
it is the best, but because it has quite a different
form from those that I have given. It has the
rhapsodical quality of the improvisatore that brings
to mind a mandolin, dark eyes, and the sweet smiles
of the fair and fickle South : —

Tuttora gaudiosa, Always lovely,

tuttora bella, Always gay,

amore, Rosella, Rosella's face

col viso gioiosa ; Shines like the day ;

occhi fere Her cruel eyes

guerrere Soldier-wise

che fere That strike

a guisa di ladrone ; Robber like,

in guardare, Glancing,

mostrare, Entrancing,

e amare Dazzling us all

mett' elli intenzione. She uses to enthrall.

It is easy to play the critic with these poets, to
deride and to be bored ; there is little trace, or none,
of truth in them, nothing of the amplitude of na-
ture, or the dignity of human passion. No song is
sung as the bird sings, itself its own reward. It is
easy to side with Dante and the school of the sweet
new style, to point the finger at the Notary, to scoff

THE SICILIAN SCHOOL OF POETKr 159

at his artificial numbers, and to agree when Lorenzo
dei Medici criticises him as heavy and graceless, or
when Carducci cries, "what wretched stuff." The
Notary and Oronte are obviously in the wrong; the
song Alceste quotes is worth all the poetry of the
whole Sicilian school : —

Si le roi m'avait donne*

Paris, sa grand* ville
Et qu'il me fallut quitter

L'amour de ma mie,
Je dirais au roi Henri ;
Reprenez votre Paris,
J'aime mieux ma mie, o gue*,

J'aime mieux ma mie.

But let us imagine ourselves having come down
from the North, from the castle of some rude Tuscan
baron, where for entertainment & jongleur has sung
out of his stale repertory, for instance, the lady's
reply to a wooer: —

Vo* ti cavillar con mego ?
se lo sa lo meo marl,
malo piato avrai con sego,
bel meser, vero ve di.

So you wish to practise blarney ?
If my husband hears, I warn ye,
Pretty sir, I tell you true.
He '11 have a bone to pick with you.

Then, let us say that we endure the hospitality of
the monks of Monte Cassino, where the poet of the
monastery has mingled edification with his monstrous
verses: —

Eo, sinjuri, s' eo fabello,
lo bostru audire compello ;

160 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

de questa bita interpello
e dell' altra bene spello.

Seigneurs, for my fable
Your attention I compel ;
Of this life I shall tell
And the other interpret well.

And, after matins and monastic rations, we ride at
last along the banks of the Volturno into Capua
and dismount at the king's palace. Young nobles,
of great name, Riccardo Filangieri, Ruggero di
Porcastrella, Landolfo Caracciolo, clatter through
the streets, glancing up at windows where the shut-
ters stand ajar ; the royal falconers, perhaps Rinaldo
of Aquino and Jacopo Mostacci, poets both, see
that the hooded falcons return to their perches in
the royal mews ; the splendour of the setting South-
ern sun falls on the castle walls ; the beautiful Bi-
anca Lancia gathers about her cavaliers and high-
born dames; minstrels play, and then Jacopo da
Lentino, his notarial duties done, sings to the viol : —

Madonna dir vi voglio como V amor m' a preso,
My lady, I will tell you how love has taken me.

Surely, in comparison with what had gone before
them, these poets are to be commended ; and if we
turn to what came after them, they did one worthy
thing : they^ worked the young language, rendered
it more easy and pliant, freed it from the grossness
of provincial usages, purged it of its Latin remnants,
and handed it on to Guinizelli and Cavalcanti, to
Dante and Petrarch, capable of nobler melody than
Europe had heard for fifteen hundred years. Who

THE SICILIAN SCHOOL OF POETEY 161

can say but that Dante would have written the
Divine Comedy in Latin, had not these poets ren-
dered the Italian tongue nice, elegant, refined, and
correct? The lion's share of this praise is due to
the Emperor; and if one becomes impatient with his
duplicity, his savage temper, and his grosser pleas-
ures, one must remember the happy days when he
and his courtiers weeded and planted in the garden
of Italian poetry.

CHAPTER XIII

THE LOMBARD COMMUNES

Beneath is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair.

SHELLEY.

THIS royal garclen of poetry, philosophy, and pleasure
was too delightful to last. The Sicilian court, with
its trovatori, its cavaliers, its melodious lawyers, its
falconers, would have been well content to be let
alone, but that could not be. Life of all sorts was
springing up everywhere ; sprouts and shoots, com-
mercial, municipal, religious, and intellectual, were
raising their heads in the fresh spring air, each forc-
ing its way to the light amid the furrows turned up
by the ploughshare of material prosperity. Guilds,
religious orders, communes, tyrannies were pushing
and jostling one another in fierce competition to de-
termine which should take and keep the larger share
of desirable things.

In this conflict the luxuriant civilization of south-
ern Italy, too much like that of Provence and Lan-
guedoc, was not of a temper to hold its own; and,
in particular, it was burdened by two causes of weak-
ness. In the first place, it was pleasure-loving, and
so became enervated and idle; in the second place,
it was based on a paternal government. Frederick
was by nature and policy a tyrant. Setting before

THE LOMBAKD COMMUNES 163

himself the example of his ancestors, and of his friend
the Soldan of Egypt, he claimed absolute power as
his right. He wished, indeed, to establish peace, order,
and justice, but he meant to do so in his own way.
His subjects were not to think and act for themselves,
to feel personal responsibility or enjoy the exertion
of individual effort. He would determine what was
best for them to do, and they must obey. Here Fred-
erick squarely confronted the great movement of the
thirteenth century, which was a stirring of individual
life, an endeavour to shake off the yoke of imme-
morial usage, an awakening consciousness of individ-
ual rights, as opposed to the unthinking acceptance
of feudal and corporate ideas which had prevailed in
the dark ages.

This movement of the thirteenth century may be
compared with that at the end of the eighteenth and
the opening of the nineteenth, in its passion for per-
sonal freedom. St. Francis and his companions were
as free in spirit as Lord Byron or the sansculottes
of Paris, and daffed the world aside with its creed
and conventions as recklessly as they. And the re-
solve of the middle classes to take their share of po-
litical power, if less fiery than that of the Jacobins,
was as determined and as successful as that of the
partisans of the Reform Bill. This disposition of
these Italians to live their lives according to their
own ideas, to manage their own affairs, to express
their thoughts and sentiments in their own way, em-
bodied itself in widely different forms ; in Umbria
it found its fullest expression through religion and
became incorporate in the first band of Franciscans;

164 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

but in Lombardy it turned to politics, and took de-
finite shape in guilds and in communal governments.
A little later the same spirit, breathing the breath of
life into art, took up the sculptor's chisel in Pisa and
the painter's brush at Siena, Florence, and Rome.

For various reasons this movement met a cold re-
ception in the South. The race or races of Sicily and
Apulia lacked then, as they have lacked ever since,
the capacity to unite love of liberty and law ; the
incongruous ideals and habits of mind of Italians,
Greeks, Saracens, Normans, and Germans gave a mon-
grel cast to the spirit of the people and prevented
their happy cooperation in any arduous enterprise;
the civil disorder during Henry's reign and Freder-
ick's minority hindered material development (for
working together successfully in little things enables
men to work together in great matters) and begot a
skepticism of generous effort ; and with these adverse
causes must be reckoned the fierce opposition of the
Emperor. For such reasons, whenever the love of
liberty, of self-assertion, of self-expression appeared
in the South, it was but here and there, and with
fitful energy ; all real achievement, social and intel-
lectual, was accomplished in the North.

The honour of occupying the van in this march
forward is due to Lombardy. The great cities of the
seacoast — Pisa, Genoa, Venice — indeed, had as-
serted their independence long before, and by their
adventurous exploits across the seas had stirred and
quickened individual effort. They had opened a way
and offered a career to energy and self-reliance. But
it was in the cities of the North, and first of all in

THE LOMBARD COMMUNES 1G5

^ — -•'

Lombardy, that this sense of personal rights was put
to use in common action to secure political independ-
ence. It was this spirit that brought the Lombard
cities into conflict with the Emperor.

At first sight these cities .seem indifferent to the
individual and interested only in corporate life J and
yet, though these corporations, the guilds and so-
cieties, were arbitrary, conventional, and narrow, they
afforded room for far greater personal liberty than
was possible under the earlier organization of society.
If they did not champion personal liberty or the
good of the humble citizens, they asserted the claims
of the middle classes against the nobles, and the
right of the commune to govern itself. In particular,
they were resolute to maintain the prerogative,
wrung from Barbarossa, of choosing their own gov-
ernors. Frederick II made no open declaration of a
purpose to take this prerogative from them ; but his
notions of government were well known. His edict
for The Kingdom was a challenge to communal lib-
erty everywhere : " Since there are enough officials
appointed by Our Majesty that every man may ob-
tain justice in both civil and criminal matters, We
abolish, the illegal usurpation that has grown up in
some parts of Our Kingdom, and We command that
henceforth no podestas., consuls, or rectors shall be
created anywhere, and that no one, either by author-
ity of custom or conferment of the people, shall
usurp any office or jurisdiction."

To such a theory of royal despotism the com-
munes were unalterably opposed. They did not wish,
in short, to be ruled, guided, or governed by any

166 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

outsider, be he bishop, prince, or emperor; they did
not wish to have their affairs cramped or tied down
by the outworn customs of the feudal system; they
wished to manage their own business and take their
own road to wealth and happiness.

These Lombard cities had grown to independence
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, during the
wars between the Empire and the Papacy. Petted by
the contending parties, each ready to pay in charters
and privileges whatever price was necessary to win
a city to its side, the communes succeeded in estab:
lishing a position of virtual independence. Naturally
the Empire felt itself aggrieved by this change, and
under Barbarossa made a spirited attempt to restore
the old order. The appeal to arms, however, had re-
sulted in a decisive victory for the cities. After a
long and desperate struggle they had received full
recognition of their municipal independence in the
Treaty of Constance (1183).

Independence of the Empire set the cities free to
develop and grow in their own way ; but this free-
dom of development and growth did not take the
path of peace. Nor did freedom mean respect of one
another's rights. The moment the common danger
was removed the cities fell foul of one another.
Each city, surrounded by its little patch of territory,
constituted a separate republic; and each republic
coveted its neighbour's things. Mere neighbourhood
was the prolific mother of quarrels. Milan fought
with Pavia, Cremona with Brescia, Piacenza with
Parma, Bologna with Modena ; every commune
with its next neighbour. Not large theories upon

THE LOMBARD COMMUNES 167

civil and ecclesiastical government but conflicting
interests and mutual jealousies brought to birth the
two great political parties in North Italy. Little
enough any of these cities cared for Emperor or
Pope as the embodiment of principles; but each city
hated its neighbour, and where a city hoped to re-
ceive support against a neighbour from the Emperor
it professed allegiance to the Empire, where it hoped
for support against a neighbour from the Pope, it
proclaimed loyalty to the Church. Common hatred of
a common enemy furnished the binding force that^
held alternate neighbours in federal leagues. One 5?
these rival leagues we may call the party of the Em-
pire, the other the party of the Church, or to employ
terms that did not come into use till the century was
half over, the Ghibelline party and the Guelf party;
but we must always remember that these large names
are hardly more than cloaks to cover local animosi-
ties and provincial ambitions.

Every city, also, was divided against itself. During
the course of political evolution, imperial counts,
bishops, and feudal nobility, in turn, had been lopped,
trimmed, and dispossessed, and in their stead the
trading and artisan classes had stepped into author-
ity and control. And the pretensions of trade and
manufacture did not stop at the city gates. They
needed elbow room. They could not endure the tolls
and imposts laid by every robber baron whose castle
commanded a high road or a ford; so in the coun-
try roundabout the embattled burghers destroyed
castle and stronghold, and forced the barons to live

ithin the city walls and be hostages for their own

168 ITALY IN THE THIKTEENTH CENTURY

good behaviour. This policy removed a danger from
without but introduced a new leaven of turbulence
withini The city inevitably split into two factions.
One, aristocratic and conservative, looked upon the
old imperial constitution as its foundation and to the
Emperor for support; the other, democratic and lib-
eral, turned to the Church. But although this is true
in the main, it is not always true ; in some cities the
aristocracy turned to the Church and the bourgeoisie
to the Empire. Sometimes two noble families divided
the city — in Verona, Montagues and Capulets (for
Shakespeare has decreed that the Capulets lived in
Verona, whether or no), in Orvieto, Monaldi and
Filippeschi, in Bologna, Lambertazzi and Geremei,
and so on ; and then a chance accident swung one
faction to the imperial side and its rival into opposi-
tion. Each faction entered into relations — alliance,
understanding, or mere sympathy — with the fac-
tions of its way of thinking in other cities. In this
manner division and hate were lodged in every
province and in every city throughout all Upper
Italy. Confederates shifted allegiance from time to
time, for loyalty beyond the limits of self-advan-
tage was little practised. But, on the whole, inter-
ests remained constant and the two parties main-
tained a fairly definite continuity.

The usual matter of party politics was some such
question as how the Guelfs of Bologna could aid
the kindred faction in Modena to dispossess its ene-
mies, or how the Imperialists of Cremona could help
a Ghibelline lord establish his rule in Verona. The
mass of citizens were never really aroused except on

THE LOMBARD COMMUNES 169

questions of trade, as for tolls imposed by a neigh-
bour on the right of transit, or for interference with
a canal, or when competition threatened some pros-
perous monopoly. Then, if one city lost its temper
with another, it forbade the passage of the other's
merchandise over its territories. The injured rival,
seeing prices rise in oil, salt, cotton, wool, fresh fish,
and steel, rang the bells, called out the trainbands,
dragged forth the carroccio, hoisted the gonfalon,
and raided its enemy's territory.

These wars between little towns scarce twenty-five
or thirty miles apart are difficult to understand. A
campaign lasted but a few weeks, and was conducted
in the summer-time after the swollen waters of the
spring had subsided. The raiders were ill-disciplined
bands of militia : city trainbands, spirited fellows
from the guilds, apprentices tired of warehouse and
counting-room, young gentlemen with nothing to
do, and politicians hoping to win prestige. The mer-
chants, on the other hand, were too busy for such fol-
lies, so it sometimes happened that a city would be
lost and won, while counting-rooms and factories
kept at work, just as they do to-day when one band
of politicians ousts another from the government.

Sometimes the marauders captured an outlying
castle, more often they merely destroyed crops, vines,
and orchards. The municipal chroniclers are full of
tales of alarums and excursions, of castles razed and
prisoners captured ; but the more destructive vic-
tories must be skeptically regarded, for in spite of^~
these annual raids and counter-raids, trade flour-
ished, wealth grew, and population increased. Walls

170 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

became too narrow and were carried out in larger
circles. Streets were paved, thatched roofs replaced
by tiles, brick and stone substituted for wood, and
commercial enterprises of great cost were under-
taken. Nevertheless, making all allowances for ex-
aggeration on the part of patriotic chroniclers, these
petty wars must have been an immense hindrance
to civilization, and it is probable that they became
more cruel and bloody as the century advanced.

The people of Lombardy had very much in com-
mon, they came from the same Italian stock crossed
by Lombards and other invaders and immigrants ;
and yet each city had its own life, its own history,
its own strongly marked individuality, just as each
had its own dialect. Even to-day, for example, the
type of the women of Pavia is markedly different
from that of the women of Piacenza. And in out-
ward aspect the cities were individual ; the piazza,
the cathedral, and the town-hall, even where they
share a common style with those of another city,
have their own individual traits.

The piazza, always in the heart of the town, was
the meeting-place where the enfranchised citizens
assembled when matters concerning the common
weal were submitted to them. There the peasants
from the country round sold their butter, eggs, fruit,
and vegetables ; there the trainbands drilled ; there
the burghers met and chatted after mass ; there
elderly couples sauntered on summer evenings ; and
there rowdy nobles shouted their war cries and
set the match to civil discord. On one side of the
piazza stood the cathedral, built in the pleasant,

THE LOMBARD COMMUNES 171

round-arched fashion of the Romanesque builders of
Lombardy. Even to-day the cathedrals in Verona,
Cremona, Ferrara, and the cities strung like beads
along the Via Emilia, show the traveller at a glance
that they were built before the arrogant Gothic of
the North had come down to impose its pointed
arches upon an alien land. Arcades under the eaves
follow the rake of the roof or run straight across the
front in a smiling, almost jolly, way ; column-borne
porticoes mark the entrance ; over the central door
of the western front one porch stands upon another's
shoulders, as if caught by Medusa playing at leap-
frog and turned to roseate stone. Even the great
reddish beasts out of whose backs the columns rise,
by the very contrast of their Lombard ferocity, con-
tribute to the pleasant serenity of the whole. On
the roof above the intersection of nave and transept
the arched octagonal lantern lifts its gracious head.
Within, the ribbed and groined vaults and clustered
piers show from what instruction the glorious vaulting
of the Gothic North was derived. Even the barn-like
shape of the western front, as at Parma or Piacenza,
is due less to peculiarity of taste than to an unwill-
ingness of the architects to forsake the tradition es-
tablished by those venerable monuments of Lom-
bard power and piety, the churches of San Michele
at Pa via and Sant' Ambrogio at Milan. That tra-
dition, set up in disregard or defiance of the Roman
basilicas (just as the successors of St. Ambrose had
resisted the domination of the Roman See), was the
distinguishing trait of Lombard architecture.

Hard-by the cathedral stood the campanile, its

172 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

stately height marked off into storeys by the hori-
zontal bands of arched corbel tables, and divided
into panels by vertical pilasters, according to the
very rigid requirements of the Lombard ateliers.
A few steps away, the baptistery sheltered the sacred
font, where every baby in the city and from the
country roundabout was signed with the sign of the
cross and admitted into the ranks of the Church mil-
itant. Grown men, remembering how they and all
their kin and all their friends had been at that font
dedicated to God, carried in their hearts a special
love of the holy place even into exile, as Dante did,
for the baptistery was to the city what the hearth is
to the home.

These Lombards had strong feelings, but they
were not a very religious people. You cannot com-
pare their cathedrals with those which the pious
French of theSQe-de-France built in honour of Mary,
Queen of HeavenV That Northern sensibility to awe
and majesty is not to be found in Italy. No Lombard
windows reveal the glory of heaven ; no emaciated,
tender, and beautiful images of stone show forth the
ideal of aspiration and self-sacrifice. The citizens of
Milan or Bologna did not take the theological world
so seriously. Besides, this generation had had no
share in building the cathedrals ; to it they were part
and parcel of a world outworn, a cold inheritance
from the past. Cathedrals represented an old order,
a time when the bishop was the great personage and
dictated his will. The trader and the artisan looked
upon the cathedral as a place where they and their
friends could attend mass in company with all the

THE LOMBARD COMMUNES 173

wealth and fashion of the town, where ladies dis-
played those extravagant gowns and trinkets that
caused austere fathers and husbands to enact inef-
fectual sumptuary laws, where the podesta brought
foreign ambassadors in hope that the high altar
might give an additional sanction to their oaths,
and where the captured banners of the enemy were
hung triumphantly.

If the Lombards lacked a taste for the nobler
poetry of religion, they had their own conceptions of
grace and beauty. Look at the cathedral of Modena,
and there you will see what those architects liked
who were just out of the main current of the archi-
tectural traditions of Pa via and Milan. They gave
loose rein to their gay inventiveness, to their ir-
regular and wayward humour. Roofs, projections,
arcades, inner arches, pilasters, porticoes, like a
straggling troop of singing boys, proclaim a happy,
prosperous, stirring life. And just to the left of the
apse rises the great solemn tower, La Ghirlandina,
warlike, beautiful, austere, fit emblem of the spirit
of a valiant city.

The cathedrals represented the earlier stage of
civic development ; they were the product of the gen-
erations that built while the clergy were in the saddle
and directed the physical as well as the intellectual
growth of the city. The generations of the ascend-
ancy of the guilds embodied their political and social
ideas in a different form. In contrast, almost in op-
position, to the cathedrals stand the town-halls —
broletti, palazzi communali, palazzi della ragione,
palazzi del podesta — massive and rectangular, stem

174 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

representations of vigilance and law. Here abode the
city government, here the podesta issued his orders,
here the consuls of the year had their offices, here
the executive council and its governing committees
sat, and here the tribunals of justice heard causes.
The ground floor, arcaded and vaulted, was often
open, ready to be the market-place in winter or bad
weather; while the upper storey held a noble hall,
where under fluttering banners citizens of weight
,and consequence debated the policy of the city.
' These buildings were the habitations of self-govern-
ment; they expressed the spirit, the self-reliance,
and the power of the guilds.

All over the city, high above the house-tops, lordly
towers lifted their threatening heads. One strong
door at the base admitted a handful of bowmen,
who climbed up the dark, narrow, spiral stair to the
battlemented roof, or to the little chamber beneath,
where two or three had room to shoot their arrows
through the splayed slits. These towers were the
signs of power and fashion. All the aristocracy of
the city coveted them. If one family was not rich
enough, several banded together and built a tower
for their common glory. Time, fire, public and pri-
vate enemies, and the rigorous, levelling justice of
the podestas, have laid them low ; but here and there
a few lonely survivors, such as the Asinelli and the
Garisenda at Bologna, or the little group at San
Gimignano, indicate what a towered city was, when
a hundred towers and more rose like a sheaf of
spears from within the narrow circuit of the walls.

Beneath these high slim fortresses, crooked streets

THE LOMBARD COMMUNES 175

wound past rows of houses, built like ours, wall to
wall. The lowest levels of the streets served for gut-
ters. Little, black-haired, barelegged boys and girls,
their radiant faces smouched and smutty, their noses
unhandkerchiefed, laughed and giggled as they
splashed through the wet and filth. There was little
place for grass or trees, excepting here and there,
before prosperous houses that fronted on an open
space, where an elm or a linden might be growing.
The houses of the poor were huddled together, little,
dirty, and in earlier times wholly without chimneys.
Distinctions of rank and property were as plain to
the passer-by then as now. Yet, except for leprosy
and random pests, the people were healthy; parents
reared good-sized families and the population in-
creased everywhere.

Milan, the richest and the most powerful of all the
northern cities, was said to hold thirteen thousand
houses and two hundred thousand people. The no-
taries were reckoned in number at four hundred, the
butchers and bakers also at four hundred severally,
the physicians at two hundred, the mastersmiths at
one hundred, schoolmasters at eighty, public scrive-
ners at fifty, and (but here the imagination or pride
of the statistician must have waxed too eloquent)
the taverns at one thousand. Pavia, which ranked
next to Milan in importance, until by shifting for-
tune Cremona and Bologna passed her, could put
fifteen thousand foot and three thousand horse into
the field. But all thirteenth-century statistics are the
offspring of sympathetic imaginations.

With population increasing rapidly, manufactures

176 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

growing, trade pushing out in all directions, and the
development of the guilds keeping even pace, the
political constitution of a city necessarily changed
frequently. Shifting needs prompted new experi-
ments^ In Milan, for instance, after the Peace of
Constance, the constitution was roughly as follows :
The archbishop (in ecclesiastical dignity inferior
only to the Pope) was recognized as the honorary
head of the city. Sentences were pronounced in his
name; and he had the prerogatives of coining money,
and of levying tolls on merchandise brought into
the city. Next in dignity, but greater in power, came
the podesta. He was an officer originally appointed
by Frederick Barbarossa, but since the Peace of
Constance elective. His qualifications were definitely
determined. He must be noble, a man of distinction,
and must come from another city. He was com-
mander-in-chief of the troops and the head of crim-
inal justice ; and had a great variety of administra-
tive duties. The consuls, who were elected annually
by that small portion of the community that held
the franchise, were charged with the other ordinary
duties of administration.

In other cities the executive power was entrusted
to a podesta or to consuls, and the legislative powers,
with respect to ordinary matters, were lodged in two
councils and, for special matters of supreme impor-
tance, in a large council composed of all the en-
franchised citizens.

The history of the period between the Treaty of
Constance (1183) and the renewal of the Lombard
League (1226), as Dante read it by the kindly light

THE LOMBARD COMMUNES 177

of flattering memory, was a tale of worth and cour-
tesy:—

In sul paese ch' Adige e Po riga

sole a valore e cortesia trovarsi,

prim a che Federico avesse briga;

Over the land which the Adige and the Po water
Used worth and courtesy to be found,
Before Frederick met opposition ; —

but as that history is told by the chroniclers, men
of mean curiosity and meagre imaginations, it is a
story of petty wars, of castles captured, of terms of
peace and oaths of concord, of barons brought to
their knees, of compacts concerning canals, of licenses
to build mills, of slaves manumitted,, and such odds
and ends of municipal life. It is also the story,
sometimes told in brick and stone, sometimes un-
recorded except by inference, of bold merchants
gathered together over plans and projects, of ener-
getic manufacturers devising new methods of pro-
duction and new means for securing to themselves
the benefits thereform, of scheming bankers run-
ning great risks for greater gains, and of all the
economic machinery of a prosperous community.

The main thread of politics begins again when
Frederick comes on the scene. His proclamation of
a diet at Cremona recalled the Lombard League
into life. The League prevented Prince Henry and
his Germans from coming into Italy. This was an
act of rebellion, but it had excuse if not justification.
The League had not acted merely from vague fear
and timid imaginings. When the Emperor's grand-
father, Frederick Barbarossa, returned to Lombardy

178 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

after the Peace of Constance, Milan had opened her
gates and welcomed him loyally, for she and her con-
federate cities trusted him. But Barbarossa's grand-
son was quite a different person. According to
common report, Frederick II was not a man of his
word. The Lombards knew the story of his crusad-
ing vows, of his covenants against the union of the
crowns of the Empire and The Kingdom, of his
pledges regarding ecclesiastical elections in Sicily ;
and in what manner those vows and covenants had
been kept. The Church had taken good care to put
her side of these quarrels in the most vivid light. They
knew, too, of other instances of Frederick's double-
dealing. When Frederick, after his first wife's death,
betrothed himself to lolande, heiress to the crown
of Jerusalem, her father, John of Brienne, was wear-
ing the crown by courtesy, and Frederick's ambassa-
dor in arranging the marriage promised King John
that he should continue to wear the crown during
his lifetime; but on the very day of the wedding
Frederick compelled John to lay down crown and
kingly title and assumed both himself. When Fred-
erick was besieging the fortress of two rebels, the
Counts of Celano and A versa, he plighted his faith
by solemn treaty that if the defenders would sur-
render they should enjoy complete personal safety;
but on surrender some were tortured and some put
to death. Another time he called on some Apulian
barons, whose loyalty he doubted, to aid him
in Sicily against the revolted Saracens; when he
got them within reach he clapped them into prison.
And there was another instance nearer home. When

THE LOMBARD COMMUNES 179

Frederick was passing through northern Italy on
the way to Rome for his imperial coronation, he en-
camped near Faenza, a Guelf city, that had been put
under the imperial ban. Frightened by his presence,
Faenza paid him fifteen hundred silver marks to be
released from the ban and also for leave to hold a
neighbouring castle (the title to which was in dispute)
until a decision as to her rights over the castle should
be decided by the proper tribunal. The Emperor
accepted the bargain and sealed his grant with his
own seal ; and yet, within a day or two, he author-
ized Forli, a Ghibelline city and Faenza's bitter
enemy, to destroy the castle and take the garrison
prisoners.

It is not to be wondered at, that the Lombard
cities distrusted the Emperor and renewed the
League. As subjects they committed a technical act
of rebellion, but as men an act of prudence; their
real error was that they did not effect a more stable
union. Mutual jealousies, local patriotism, and vari-
ous time-honoured causes of division kept them apart.
They produced no statesman of constructive ability.
Nobody thought of permanent articles of confedera-
tion with a federal constitution, a federal govern-
ment, and federal taxation. The union was a mili-
tary alliance, and its provisions were almost wholly
of a negative character: "No confederate city shall
exact tolls for the passage of men or provisions
through one another's territory;" "Nobody shall
receive anything from the Emperor directly or in-
directly, nor from any citizen of Cremona, Pavia or
of the Imperial party, under pain of confiscation and

180 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

banishment;" "No judge, no soldier (mercenary or
volunteer), no student, no retainer, belonging to any
city of the League, either in person or by agent, shall
have any dealings with the Imperial Court or with
anybody connected with the court." In this league
were Milan, Piacenza, Bergamo, Verona, Brescia,
Mantua, Vercelli, Lodi, Turin, Alessandria, Vicenza,
Padua, Treviso, Bologna, and Faenza; but they
could not remain a confederate body for any pur-
pose but defence against the Emperor. After that
prop of combined action was taken out, instead of
trying to frame terms of civic confederacy that
should lead to closer union and prepare the way for
a common government, they came to blows each with
its neighbour for the same petty causes as before, and
the League tumbled to pieces like a house of cards.
Milan fought Cremona, Piacenza divided in two and
went to buffets against itself, Verona turned Ghibel-
line and fought Brescia and Mantua, Padua fought
Treviso, Bologna fought Modena and Parma, and
anarchy again reigned in

lo dolce piano,
che da Vercelli a Marcabfc dichina.

It was this anarchy that made the strength of the
Emperor's position. He, at least, had great plans of
universal law emanating from the Emperor; he
dreamed of a highly centralized power appointing
governors, justiciaries, judges, bailiffs for all Italy,
of equality before the law for all subjects according
to their several degrees, of peace, of order, of uni-
formity. And though the potent grounds for Ghib-
elline loyalty were selfish ambitions, yet here and

THE LOMBARD COMMUNES 181

there were nobler spirits who espoused the imperial
cause for the sake of the ideals that the Emperor
saw in vision, who dumbly felt what Dante expressed
in the De Monarchia, that peace and unity were
necessary in order that men should attain to their
fullest development and highest achievement, and
that peace and unity could only be obtained under
a monarch.

If the communes deserve our sympathy because
they stood for independence and self-government,
the Emperor, too, deserves sympathy because he
raised the standard of peace, unity, law, and order.
By these conflicting and one-sided ideals Italy was
accomplishing her destiny.

CHAPTER XIV

BOLOGNA

Surge nel chiaro inverno la fosca turrita Bologna.

CABDUCCI.

In the clear winter rises dark, towered Bologna.

THE power and vigour of the Lombard cities are,
however, ill-expressed by a record of wars or a sketch
of politics. It is necessary to look closer at their
life and constitution, and to do so in short space
one must choose a single city ; but which ? Milan,
walled and moated, — "urbs honor Italic, nota et
f elix, longoque Celebris ab evo " (the glory of Italy,
happy, famous from of old) — by her preeminence in
wealth and power, by her leadership in the national
cause, might well seem entitled to be chosen. Within
her walls the noblest basilica in Lombardy guarded
the bones of St. Ambrose. The great atrium, round
whose sides ran Romanesque arcades, if it could not
boast such memories as sanctified the atria in the
Roman basilicas, was sacred with the bones of good
men long dead, and imposed a solemn hush before
the entrance ; the central doors, carved in the late
days of Roman art before the long eclipse, still ex-
celled the doors cast by Barisano di Trani for the
cathedral of Benevento or those by Bonanno da Pisa
for the cathedral of Monreale, or even those of the
oratory of St. John in the Lateran baptistery. Within
the church vaulted bays, resting on clustered pillars,

BOLOGNA 183

ranged up the nave, doing honour to the Lombard
builders ; at the crossing of the transept stood the
high altar resplendent in gold, silver, and jewels ; over
the altar on its porphyry columns rose the fantastic
canopy, upon which in deep relief Christ gives the
keys to Peter and the Book of Revelation to John ;
and high above the canopy hung the cupola, whose
octagonal top, light and graceful, crowned the
edifice. At the back of the tribune, in Byzantine
mosaics, Christ sat upon his throne, with ministering
angels to right and left ; and on his lap an open
book with the words, " Ego Lux Mundi." But the
skill of architect, sculptor, and mosaist, could not,
with all their accomplishment, enhance the real glory
of the basilica. There, in that very place, though
time had compelled the Romanesque builders to re-
build the old Roman church, stood the font at which
St. Ambrose had baptized St. Augustine, greatest of
all the Fathers ; and at that threshold, perhaps beside
those very doors, Ambrose had rebuked the Roman
Emperor, Theodosius, and denied him admittance.
And when, having made amends for the wrong he
had done, Theodosius had received permission to
enter, he had prostrated himself upon that floor and
repeated the psalm, " Adhsesit pavimento anima mea"
(my soul cleaveth unto the dust, quicken thou me
according to thy word). No church in Italy, outside of
Rome, not the basilica of San Marco at Venice, all
glorious within, nor the pictured cathedral of Mon-
reale, nor that at Pisa, which shines like alabaster in
the light of the setting sun, could rival that proud
eminence of glory.

184 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

In addition to her claim as the home of St. Am-
brose, Milan had another of more tangible interest.
She was the seat of the archbishop ; and her see had
dared set itself up against the See of Rome. She
already dominated her neighbour cities, Como and
Lodi, and was plainly marked out as the future ruler
of the province. Her poet had reason for his boasts :

Urbibus et reliquis solita est prebere ducatum
Prudentum, ingentes et opes effundere surnptu
Magnifico, cuius victricia signa rebelles
Auditis tremuere minis, aciemque coruscam
Armis innumero consertam milite. Florens
Gaudebat.

To other cities she is wont to give

Sagacious leaders, and her riches spend

Magnificently free ; the rebels quake

To hear her threats, to see her conquering standards,

Her serried ranks, with glittering arms

And soldiers numberless. And in her own

Prosperity doth she exult.

As leader in resistance to the Empire, Milan, beyond
all competitors, stands the first; but other cities have
other honours to boast of, and political preeminence
does not of itself deserve the palm.

Next to the claims of Milan come those of many-
towered Pa via, "urbs bona,flos urbium, clara,potens,
pia," once the capital city of the Lombard kings.
She, too, had her famous monuments. In the church
of San Michele, founded (so the legend ran) by Con-
stantine and cherished by the Lombard kings, the
noblest of the Hohenstaufens, Frederick Barbarossa,
had received the iron crown of Lombardy. In the
sweet-syllabled church, San Pietro in Ciel d' Oro, lay

BOLOGNA 185

the bones of Boethius, magnus et omnimodo miri-
ficandus homo, who, as Dante says, laid bare this
deceitful world to him that hath ears to hear, and

da martiro
e da esilio venne a questa pace ; —

and in a tomb near by lay the bones of a greater
than he, St. Augustine. In Pavia, also (so patriotic
citizens said), rested the ashes of St. Crispin, of the
lovely St. Cecilia and of Valerian, doubly blessed, for
he was both her husband and a saint, and other holy
bones numerous enough to have hallowed a meaner
city. In those days, at least, only a jealous Roman
tradition contested these priceless possessions.

The beauty of Pavia made her a worthy shrine to
encase the holiest relics. Decked with an hundred
churches, crowned with towers, and girdled with
encircling walls, she stood romantic and charming
beside the river Ticino, and so tall and resplendent
that, though a city of the plain, she could be seen
from the distance of a day's journey. She had the
air of a mistress among the cities, and, opposing
Milan with a fierce loyalty not surpassed even by
that of Cremona, maintained the honour of the
Empire in Lombardy. Here the Ticino, as it sweeps
downward to the Po on its joyous pilgrimage from
Lago Maggiore, measures two hundred yards across.
Now its yellow waters roll and swirl past low trees
and green bushes, but then the water was so clear
that in spite of its depth fishes could be seen dart-
ing to and fro, and crabs crawling backward on the
bottom. And even in those days, on the shore next
the city, the women of Pavia, erect, straight-backed,

186 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

•with their classic features, ripe complexions, and
winsome looks, brighter in their gaudy kerchiefs
even than the tiled city, washed their linen, sang
their songs, and made eyes at the sunburnt fishermen.
Milan could not boast of any such picturesque and
endearing aspect; but in all the practical capacities
that create wealth and maintain arms, Milan outdid
her rival.

East of Milan, halfway to the sea, on the banks
of the impetuous Adige, Verona sits enthroned, the
warder of the passes of the north ; and might without
arrogance urge her claims to be our paradigm. She
could show a mightier memorial of her Roman de-
scent than any city north of Rome. Here Theodoric
the Ostrogoth, in punishment for the death of good
Boethius, mounted the coal-black horse from hell
<and started on the chase that ended down the crater
of Lipari. Here King Alboin the Lombard forced
Queen Rosamund, his wife, to drink out of a cup
made from her father's skull; and here he paid a
dreadful reckoning. Here Capulets and Montagues
" from ancient grudge broke to new mutiny." Here
young Sordello first saw Lady Cunizza. And, as for
monuments, San Zeno in its noble purity might
challenge comparison with the proudest churches of
Italy. Verona, indeed, lay outside Lombardy, in the
March of Treviso ; but that should not exclude her
from our choice if she had been Lombard at heart,
but she was not. She was no city of traders and
artisans ; she was proud of her brawling nobility,
and drew herself back from the common throng.
With Azzo of Este, Richard of San Bonifazio, or

BOLOGNA 187

the haughty Ezzelino at her head, she stood like
Coriolanus, despising the mercantile classes, " things
created to buy and sell with groats." Only Guelf
sentiment, mounting to its flood, had been able to
make her join the Lombard League; and at the
first ebb she fell away. She cannot serve as the type
of trading and manufacturing city that raised Lom-
bardy to greatness.

Some twenty-five miles south, and a little to the
west, on the " honoured flood, smooth-sliding Min-
cius," that carries the waters of Lago di Garda giu
per verdi paschi — down through green pastures
— to the river Po, the marsh-encompassed Mantua
had little of singular excellence excepting memories
of Virgil. Her people told wild stories of her founder,
the virgin Manto (Inferno, xx), and were already
beginning to create a legend of Sordello, how he
became a knight such as those of the Round Table,
how he unhorsed his challengers in the lists, married
Ezzelino's sister, and lived in Mantua to a ripe old
age, honoured by all the world. And they also said
that in Sant' Andrea's church, quite forgotten and
miraculously revealed, were the sacred drops that
flowed at Golgotha when the centurion Longinus
(destined to belief and glorious martyrdom) had
thrust his spear into his Saviour's side. Too credu-
lous by far, the citizens of Mantua cannot furnish
the type of the quick-witted, practical, shrewd,
money-loving Lombards. Nor could Cremona, seated
on the north bank of the Po, some twenty miles
below Piacenza, challenge comparison with Milan
in wealth or power, with Pavia in dignity, or with

188 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Verona in charm ; only in her unconquerable loyalty
to the Empire is she inferior to none.

South of the river Po, on the Via Emilia, there
are several cities, any one of which might serve to
show what Lombardy was, Piacenza, Borgo San
Donnino, Parma, Reggio, each with its own char-
acter, each looking on life as primarily a matter of
industry and finance, each resolved to be its own
master and not to submit, like a schoolboy, to ways
fashioned and determined by others. But there are
good reasons for riding by and going on at least as
far as Modena. Here one is tempted to stop by the
charm of the cathedral and the noble dignity of the
belfry ; and, having stopped, one is tempted to stay.
In Modena are memories of Anthony and Octavian,
demi- Atlases of the earth preparing to dispute its
ownership, and of the great Countess Matilda, Hil-
debrand's strong support ; but more persuasive than
these is the fragrance of mediaeval piety that hangs
about the cathedral, and teaches us to remember
that the sentiment of the Lombards for the Church
was not all due to policy.

" After long centuries [to tell the tale as a citi-
zen, who had the privilege to be present, tells it]
the church that housed the sacred bones of San
Gimignano, the patron saint of Modena, cracked
and threatened to fall; the congregation, people,
nobles, and clergy, decided to build a new church
worthy of such a saint. Needless to say, it was really
Christ, the originator of all good things, the great
giver of all good gifts, that inspired this decision ;
and to Him is due the honour. Need more be said ?

Alinari, phot.

CATHEDRAL
Modena

BOLOGNA 189

For Christ's help makes the story plain. The people
asked one another where a man could be found able
to design and build so great an edifice ; and at last
by God's grace a man, by name Lanfranc, was found,
mirabilis artifex, mirificus cedificator (a most won-
derful artist and architect). Acting under his coun-
sel and direction the citizens of Modena and all
the congregation of the basilica began digging the
foundations, to the glory of God, the Father Al-
mighty, of Jesus Christ, His only Son, and of the
Holy Ghost, and also to the honour of the Virgin
Mary and of our father, San Gimignano ; and, a little
later, in the presence of a great throng, with lauds,
hymns, and canticles, with lamps and candles, with
book and with cross, they laid the corner stone; and
God's right hand prospered the building from the
foundation to the roof. Quis queat immensa tua,
Deus, numerare beneficia? (Who can tell the tale
of thy gracious gifts, 0 God?) What fountain of
speech, what flood of eloquence, can recount thy
mighty deeds ? The walls rise, the building mounts,
thy unutterable loving kindness, 0 God, receives its
praise and its extolling.

" After seven years came the day for transferring
the saint's body. Pope, cardinals, bishops, the Count-
ess Matilda, the wonderful Lanfranc, soldiers and
citizens, a mighty multitude, gather about the tomb.
Then a great question arises: Shall the tomb be
opened ? Those present were of many minds. At last
six knights and twelve burgesses swear to keep watch
and ward lest some one overbold should dare to vio-
late the sacred relics ; then, with exceeding reverence,

190 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTUKY

the stone slab was lifted, and a second slab was dis-
covered underneath. At this a great many people
were of opinion that nothing more should be done;
but by God's mercy (that no colour of doubt should
be left to a disbeliever or to any one befogged by
blindness of heart) these dissentient opinions turned
about into one harmonious accord. Why spin the
story oat? While the Pope was preaching to the
people, granting remission of sins and bringing
the divine mysteries down to the hearts of all, and
the cardinals, bishops, clergy, and laymen were pray-
ing and singing psalms, the most blessed body of our
holy father San Gimignano was uncovered by the
hands of Bishop Buonsignore of Keggio and of Lan-
f ranc, the architect. Oh ! what exultation, what odour
of sweetness, what fragrance came forth ! All stretch
their hands to heaven and give thanks to the Saviour,
the Founder of all holy things, because he deigned
to keep the relics of our father inviolate to our time."
But though the cathedral by its picturesque and
childlike charm keeps fresh the memory of San Gi-
mignano and of Lanfranc, and by its story reveals
how much religious feeling had survived from an
earlier generation and still abode in Modena, and so
gives her title to special remembrance ; yet we must
remember that no piety but a habit of interpret-
ing life in terms of yardstick and gold coin is the
distinguishing trait of the Lombards, as may be
learned not only in Lombardy, but abroad, for if we
go to London we do not look for traces of them in
Westminster Abbey but in Lombard Street. Mo-
dena's role is to reiterate that the mediaeval way of

BOLOGNA 191

regarding religion and things from of old deemed
holy still maintained its power over many people, —
women, perhaps, the aged, the sick, the bereaved,
the unprosperous, the clergy, and the friars, — and
tempered, if it could not control, the dominant trait
of the Lombards, money-getting. Our choice must
fall where the spirit of industry finds expression in
associations of traders and artisans, where democracy
develops and grows until traders and artisans con-
trol the state, for that, though often, even usually,
thwarted by adverse forces, was the normal tendency
of an Italian city in the thirteenth century.

To the south of the Po lay a city equal in charm
to Modena or Verona, greater in wealth and power
than Pa via, and more renowned than Milan ; whose
university excelled the proud university at Oxford
and rivalled that at Paris. If a student in those days
on his way to the University of Bologna, were to
travel from Milan, he would ride southward to Pavia
or Lodi, and from there to the ferry across the Po
at Piacenza. From Piacenza he would turn to the
southeast and follow all the rest of his way the
great Roman road built fourteen hundred years be-
fore by Marcus ^Emilius Lepidus. He must cross a
dozen little rivers flowing north into the Po, which
in the summer are mere rivulets trickling through
wastes of sand, but in the spring, swollen by melt-
ing snows, turn into impassable torrents. He would
ride past vineyards and olive groves, grainfields and
orchards, past sombre forests tenanted by deer,
wolves, and wild boar, past rough farms, and here
and there a fortified castle, bastioned and turreted.

192 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

One night he would lodge at Parma, the next at
Modena, and the following day at sundown he would
reach the river Reno, and from there he had barely
a mile or two before riding up to the gates of Bo-
logna ; in all, five days of easy going from Milan.
The road was picturesque but monotonous. To the
north the great Lombard plain stretches flat as a
bowling green all the way to the Alps ; to the south,
some dozen miles off, rise the foothills of the
"olive sandall'd" Apennines. At the Reno, accord-
ing to Dante, Lombardy ended and Romagna be-
gan, but Bologna was not commonly deemed a city
of Romagna, she shared the general fortunes of the
Lombard cities, and for all our purposes she may be
reckoned among them. She is the paradigm we have
been looking for.

The city of Bologna was not marked by any spe-
cial monument. The palace of the podesta was
destined to become more famous from an illustrious
prisoner than from its architectural proportions, good
though they were. The church of San Domenico,
built in honour of the great saint, who had passed
his last years and had died in Bologna, was just be-
ginning, and though there were two hundred towers,
of which the Asinelli and Garisenda only are left,
yet there were many other towered cities as much
coronated as she. The cathedral of San Pietro,
crowded about by little churches, chapels, and clois-
ters in confused intimacy, was more memorable for
tombs, relics, and memories than for its beauty. But
Bologna did not interest herself in the past, she was
an intensely modern city. Perhaps more than any

Almari, phot

GARI8ENDA AND ASINELLI
Bologna

BOLOGNA 193

other city in Italy she represented that liberty of
thought and action, that impatience with the yoke
of past customs and old privileges, which were the
mainsprings of communal life in Italy.

Bologna's foreign policy, if that name may be
given to her extra-mural politics, was very simple.
She first fought the nobles in the country round and
compelled them to become citizens and live within
the city walls ; then she fought her nearest neigh-
bours, Modena to the west, Imola to the east, Ferrara
to the north, and Pistoia, whose territories met hers
somewhere on the crest of the Apennines, to the
south. In the larger matters that divided all Italy
into Guelf and Ghibelline she sided with the Church,
and took a leading part in action for the common
good. She was always antagonistic to the Emperor
Frederick. She had tried to stop him on his advent-
urous expedition north to win the German crown. In
1222 she made war on Imola against his express com-
mands. For punishment Frederick attempted to close
her university and founded a rival at Naples. Bo-
logna's retort was to furnish two hundred and fifty
knights and fifty slingers to the Lombard League.
This anti-imperial policy had a near connection with
the city's internal politics ; for the popular faction
was intimately related to the Guelf party and each
victory, each gain, of that party strengthened the
position of the popular faction.

CHAPTER XV

THE CONSTITUTION OF BOLOGNA

La santa Liberia non e f anciulla

Da poco rame ;

Dura virago ell' e, dure domanda
Di perigli e cT amor pruove famose :
In mezzo al sangue de la sua ghirlanda

Crescon le rose.

CABDUGCI.
Sacred Liberty is not a girl

Of little cost ;

An Amazon is she ; she demands
Of perils and of love proofs hard and glorious :
In the midst of blood the roses

Of her garlands grow.

AT the opening of the century the constitution of
Bologna was somewhat after this fashion. The gen-
eral powers of government were lodged in three
councils : a small advisory council, that may be called
the cabinet ; a special council of six hundred mem-
bers ; and a general council, to which were eligible
all citizens between the ages of eighteen and seventy
years, excepting those belonging to the inferior crafts
or engaged in the baser occupations. The two larger
councils were elective. Each year members for the
succeeding year were elected by a committee chosen
by lot from among the members of the general and
special councils. Doctors of law were ex qfficio al-
lowed to attend meetings of the special council and
of the cabinet. These councils were convoked by au-
thority of the podesta, and met separately or together
according to the nature of the business to be trans-

THE CONSTITUTION OF BOLOGNA 195

acted. If one were to judge only from the consti-
tution and character of these councils, one might
suppose that the middle class, or at least the upper
middle class, was in power ; but the fact was that at
this time the nobility constituted the governing body.
The nobles held themselves apart, built towers, forti-
fied their houses, leagued with one another, inter-
married, gathered dependants and retainers about
them; and succeeded in lording it over the city.
The causes that enabled them to do so are not far
to seek. In the first place, all the nobles were citi-
zens (and this was not their doing, they had been
given no choice, they had been enfranchised by
force) ; they were the landowners ; they had social
prestige ; they had greater knowledge of affairs than
the lower classes ; and public opinion probably sup-
ported their view that they should be at the head
of the government. Their control was secured in
two ways : by help of the podesta, and by narrowly
limiting through indirect means the powers of the
councils. The podesta, always a noble, naturally sym-
pathized with his class, and exercised the powers of
his office for their benefit, not by particular acts
of injustice done in their favour against members of
the lower classes, but by treating them as entitled
to the positions of authority and dignity. Secondly,
before the podesta called a meeting of either of the
great councils, the questions to be submitted for de-
cision were required to be written down in a book
kept for that purpose at the chancery. This, of
course, was an extreme limitation ; and not only
that, but the right to speak in the council was hedged

196 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

about with the narrowest rules. At the meeting the
chancellor read out the questions ; when he had fin-
ished, four selected orators (undoubtedly appointed
by the governing body) got up, took their stand be-
side the tribune of the magistrates, and delivered
their speeches. Then the magistrates spoke, but only
upon questions that concerned their offices. No pri-
vate member was allowed to speak at all except upon
matters of very grave importance, and even then he
was not allowed to stand where the official orators
stood, but he got up on a rostrum apart, so that it
should be obvious that he was expressing his personal
opinion and not that of the government. The chief
reason for this restriction upon the right to speak
in a public meeting was undoubtedly to keep control
of the business in the hands of the ruling clique;
yet the restriction finds some justification in the
quick tempers, the sharp tongues, and ready fists of
the Bolognese. In all the codes of the Trainband
Companies there are elaborate provisions for punish-
ing breaches of the peace at a meeting of the society,
and an especial prohibition against giving the lie.
The statutes of one company open with : "No mem-
ber shall say to another member, ' You are a liar.' '
After the orators and magistrates had finished speak-
ing, the vote was taken, and then the resolutions
adopted were formally drawn up by notaries. The
power of the councils was thus practically confined
to voting "aye" or "no" upon the questions sub-
mitted to them.

The executive head of the commune was the po-
desta. He was elected by a committee chosen by lot

THE CONSTITUTION OF BOLOGNA 197

from the special and general councils. His qualifica-
tions were definitely prescribed : he must be a noble,
a foreigner to Bologna, and over thirty-six years of
age ; he must own no real property in the city or its
territory ; he must be no relative to any elector, nor
to the last podesta ; and he must not come from the
same place as the last podesta. He was expected to
be a man of note and well qualified for the office ;
and before his election it was the custom for the
councils to designate the city from which he was to
be chosen. These rules were adopted in order to se-
cure an impartial governor free from connections
with local politics. Similar rules prevailed every-
where. To further this purpose of an impartial ad-
ministration, the podesta brought four judges with
him. His term, like that of all elective office-holders
in Bologna, was for one year. He was commander-
in-chief of the army, and in conjunction with the
cabinet conducted foreign affairs and important
matters that involved great cost, and it was usually
his duty to enforce all laws, even such minute laws
as we should call police regulations.

The office of podesta was an honour, but it had
its hazards. For example, in 1257, Beno de Gozza-
dini of Bologna was podesta of Milan. At that time
a canal already existed from the river Ticino nearly
halfway to Milan. To extend the canal all the way
to the city would certainly be of great advantage,
both for carrying merchandise to and fro, and for
supplying this tract of land with water during the
dry season. The Podesta decided in favour of the
plan and began the work ; to meet the expense, which

198 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

was very great, he proposed to levy a new tax and
not to exempt the clergy. The people resented the
tax, the clergy bitterly resented their enforced con-
tribution. Malicious rumours and accusations were
spread abroad. The Podesta, unjustly and illegally,
was haled to trial and condemned in a sum of money
too great for one man to pay ; and not content with
this, the mob attacked him, dragged him in derision
through the streets, and when they had killed him
flung his battered corpse into the new canal.

The magistrates of the city were of two kinds.
Ordinary magistrates, such as judges of the various
courts, the sheriff, the law officers of the commune,
and the treasurer, were elected in the same manner
as members of the councils. The special magistrates,
such as ambassadors and officials for extraordinary
services, were appointed by the podesta. Each mag-
istrate had his notaries, his attendants, and his po-
lice. The country districts were governed by officials,
also known as podestas, while the subject villages
elected their own chief magistrates, called consuls.
The clergy were subject only to the canonical juris-
diction of the bishop.

The podesta was the commander-in-chief of the
army; but the chief officers, known as the military
magistrates, were elected like the other magistrates.
The military forces of the city were organized by
districts. Bologna had four districts, one for each
of the four gates, — Porta Stiera, Porta San Pietro,
Porta San Procolo, and Porta Ravegnana. Each
quarter had its own gonfaloniere, and the horse and
foot when they took the field followed him. The

THE CONSTITUTION OF BOLOGNA 199

whole military force was only called out on very seri-
ous occasions. Commonly a campaign was no more
than the raid of a small band over the border. When
the expedition was more important, the troops of one
or two quarters were ordered out. The army was
very far from being a regular army ; the nobles were
from their youth trained to military exercises, but
the rank and file were civilians armed with helmet,
breastplate, shield, sword, spear, and bow. The car-
roccio, which was a stately cart with a mast from
which the banner of the republic hung, was taken
on the more important campaigns and served as the
rallying-point for the army.

Such a constitution as that of Bologna, both for
civil and military matters, must have depended on
customs and regulations that are now lost in the
waste places of oblivion. The one clear fact is that
under an apparently democratic form of government,
the aristocracy was in power. But the centre of po-
litical gravity was shifting all the time; there was a
steady tendency to substitute the upper middle class
in place of the aristocracy as the chief power in the
state. Bologna was prosperous, business flourished,
and wealth rapidly increased ; and almost all the in-
crease in wealth, except what accrued to the nobles
and to the Church by the rise in value of land, went
to the middle classes. The rich merchants, great
dealers in silks and wool, had long been associated
in the "Society of Merchants," the bankers and
brokers in the " Society of Exchange " ; these soci-
eties had already before this time secured special
political privileges. Merchants and bankers wererec-

200 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

ognized to be the top layer, as it were, of the middle
class, and no doubt their daughters married into the
nobility. The trades and crafts were also organized
into guilds. The purpose of a guild was to unite men
of the same occupation in common action for the
common good, such as to perform religious rites to-
gether, to enforce contracts, to collect debts, and
supplement as best they might the inadequate legal
machinery of the state. The lesser guilds contracted
closer relations with one another in order that they
might the better assert their rights against the arro-
gant and turbulent nobility. They had their share
in the general prosperity; and there was a special
source of well-being for shopkeepers, pedlars, and
small dealers in the presence of the students, who
thronged in thousands to the famous university.

In one generation so great an economic change
took place that it was impossible for the political
constitution to remain as it was ; it was merely a
question of time as to when the political constitution
should conform to the new economic conditions ; and
yet it was not to be expected that the conservative
classes should give way and a political revolution
take place without turmoil. The gradually increas-
ing dissatisfaction of the middle classes was brought
violently to the surface in 1228. The nobles grossly
mismanaged a war, either through incompetence or
treachery. The people rose in wrath ; merchants,
artisans, discontented gentlemen, and the mob made
common cause. The rectors of the guilds and a rich
merchant named Joseph, one of the Tuscan immi-
grants to Bologna, led them on. The people crowded

THE CONSTITUTION OF BOLOGNA 201

up to the paLace of the podesta and demanded sur-
render of the government and of the city's gonfalon.
On refusal the doors were broken down, the palace
ransacked, public books and registers torn up, the
records of banishments and criminal sentences ut-
terly destroyed, and Joseph, the merchant, put at the
head of the government. This revolt was really
a revolution, rendered inevitable by the economic
changes. One result of it was a radical amendment
to the constitution which, by the creation of a
"Board of Ancients," granted to the mercantile
classes a greater share in the administration of the
government. This board was composed of the con-
suls of the " Society of Merchants " and of the
"Society of Exchange/' and the heads of the lesser
guilds, seventeen or eighteen in number. Just what
powers these Ancients had is not clear. St. Thomas
Aquinas says, that they were like the tribunes of old
Rome, charged with the defence of the people's
rights.

A far more radical consequence of this revolution
was the creation of a popular party, which organ-
ized itself with the Board of Ancients at its head,
and two councils after the manner of the communal
government, and called itself " The People." It was,
in substance, a political confederation of the guilds.
This body had its own separate business as guardian
of popular rights, and, in addition, was set, or rather
set itself, by the side of the existing communal gov-
ernment as a coordinate branch, taking a share (the
amount of which it is hard now to determine) in
legislation and in the administration of public affairs.

202 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTUKY

The old government, shrunken from sole master to
be a mere partner, and known as " The Commune/'
remained in the hands of the nobles, except that the
Board of Ancients constituted a part of it as well as
a part of the new body. The new constitution, in
short, was an attempt to put in double harness the
conflicting interests of nobles and commons. How
peace was kept it is hard to see. But then it is
equally hard to see how a great university with sev-
eral thousand students, cooped up cheek by jowl
with these warring elements within walls scarce half
a mile across, could proceed tranquilly with the study
of Roman law.

The rise to power of the middle class was greatly
aided by divisions in the ranks of their adversaries.
The nobility was split in halves. Rivalry, jealousy,
inherited quarrels, set them at odds in Bologna, as
well as in every other city. The Geremei were at the
head of one faction, the Lambertazzi of the other.
The Geremei, in order to strengthen themselves
courted popular support and took the people's side
against their own order. One of the Geremei was
next in command to Giuseppe Toschi during the
revolution of 1228. And as the interests of the pop-
ular party coincided with those of the Church in
opposition to their common enemies, the Imperial-
ists, the people and the Church made common cause,
and in the chronicles of the time go together under
the name of the Church party, the Geremei being
called the leaders of the Church party. The Lam-
bertazzi, either outmanosuvred by their rivals in
seeking the wind of popular favour, or less bend-

THE CONSTITUTION OF BOLOGNA 203

ing, were pushed by the coalition against them and
by the force of events first into sympathy and then
into union with the imperial party, until finally, to-
wards the end of the century, they were regarded as
pure Ghibellines and public enemies, and driven
from the city.

Another important consequence or accompaniment
of the revolution of 1228 was the creation of the
Trainband Companies. These companies were framed
on the model of the guilds; their purpose was to
supply the popular party with disciplined fighting
men who should hold the nobility in check, and who
should also constitute the main strength of the army
in time of war. In form these companies were mu-
tual benefit societies with special provisions for the
maintenance of certain religious observances. There
were twenty-four of them. Each company was usually
composed of men living in the same quarter of the
town, and each had its own emblem, a lion, an eagle,
a griffin, or a dolphin. But there were a few com-
panies composed of men whose fathers, if not they
themselves, had been born in some other city or
province, as, for example, the Company of the Tus-
cans. There were a good many of these immigrants
who for one reason or another — the capture of
their city by enemies, the destruction of their houses
by an earthquake or a fire — had come and settled
in Bologna. For instance, many families came from
Brescia, after that city had suffered great damage
from an earthquake.

Each of these companies, like the guilds, had its
own statutes ; and these statutes really tell us more

204 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

of what was going on in Bologna than the chroni-
clers do. The latter are dry as sand of the desert,
and give little hint that they record what were once
the actions of living men ; whereas, though the
statutes are dry, life transpires through their ill-
written Latin, and the imaginative reader can see that
Bologna was once a breathing, panting, passionate
place. The preamble usually begins in a stately way,
as, for instance, the ordinances of the Tuscan Com-
pany : " In the name of God, amen. These are the
statutes and ordinances of the Fraternity and Society
of the Tuscans living in Bologna, made to the honour
of God, of blessed Mary the Virgin, of Saint John
the Baptist and of all the saints, and to the honour
and good estate of the rulers of the Commune of
Bologna and to the honour and good estate of the
Society aforesaid."

These ordinances provide for the qualification of
members, procedure at meetings, election of officers,
performance of religious rites, helping poor mem-
bers, ministering to the sick, attendance at funerals,
fees, salaries, and fines, but principally for the spe-
cial objects of the society : the organization of its
members into military squads, the election and ap-
pointment of officers, their duties in time of civil
disturbances, their duties in time of war, and with
special provisions to prevent members taking part
in quarrels between nobles. The chief officers were
a captain (the gonfaloniere), a treasurer and four
ministers, besides the military officers ; there were a
number of officials, such as nuncios, notaries, inquis-
itors to examine accounts, proctors to see that mem-

THE CONSTITUTION OF BOLOGNA 205

bers performed their duties, a committee to revise
the statutes, and a council of twenty-four who were
chosen by the ministers.

Out from among these ordinances, though written
between the lines, stands in capital letters the reason
why the Lombard Confederacy failed to establish a
united state and why these little commonwealths
failed to maintain themselves for long, namely, lack
of confidence of one man in another. Nobody wholly
trusts anybody else. The offices are for terms of one
year or for six months, and no official, except the
podesta, is eligible for reelection until after a year's
interval. The gonfaloniere has twelve officers, yet
they are not appointed by him, but by the ministers;
whenever he carries forth the banner, his aides, ad-
jutants, and quartermasters must go with him, but
he must carry his banner where his aides direct, and
the adjutants have authority to give orders to the
men as they see fit. These statutes also show lack of
broad-mindedness ; for instance, the ordinances of
the Company of Tuscans provide that in case of any
election to any city office by the Board of Ancients,
the representative of the Tuscans on the Board shall
vote for the appointment of a fellow member of his
society. This suspiciousness and this pettiness were
both a cause and a result of perfidy and disloyalty.
Certainly the inability of the communes to carry out
any large policy was due to the political incoherence
born of mutual distrust, and led to their ultimate
ruin.

The constitution of Bologna, as it stood after the
revolution of 1228, had one obvious and very serious

206 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

defect. This was the relation of the People's party
to the podesta. He represented the rival party of
the nobility, and yet the people's trainbands were
under his orders as commander-in-chief. This ar-
rangement inevitably offered occasion for misunder-
standing and discord. It was plain that some remedy
must be found; and in the course of another gener-
ation the middle classes had increased their relative
importance in the state to such a degree that they
were able to effect another important change in the
constitution. They created a new office of the high-
est consequence (1255). The holder was called the
captain of the People. He was the head of the
People's party very much as the podesta was head
of the Commune, and presided over its councils just
as the podesta presided over the councils of the
Commune. The captain of the People, however, was
exalted above the podesta, for while the podesta
remained governor within the walls of the city, out-
side the walls the captain of the People was com-
mander-in-chief. This amendment was one of those
irresolute compromises, due half to conflicting inter-
ests, half to timidity, in which the Italian communes
experimented during this century. It shows that the
guilds had thriven and consolidated their power,
and that production and trade were undergoing a
rapid expansion comparable, though in far less de-
gree, to that caused by the introduction of machin-
ery in the nineteenth century. As a constitutional
measure, however, the experiment was far from
being a complete success.

This rise of the upper bourgeoisie to political

THE CONSTITUTION OF BOLOGNA 207

power wasJby no jneans confined to Bologna. A
similar movement went on in all the trading towns
of Italy, north of the Emperor's dominions. Bologna
is preeminent in democracy among her sister cities,
because she excelled them all either in point of time
or of thoroughness. But her political changes were
no triumph ^for democratic ideas as such; they
effected no more than the substitution of the trading
class for the landed nobility. The guilds were nar-
row corporations of master workmen, they excluded
apprentices and persons dependent upon others, as
well as vassals, freedmen, and serfs. They had little
flavour of genuine democracy about them except
in one particular, they favoured the liberation of
serfs ; but there they acted from a mixture of politi-
cal and religious motives. For one reason their alli-
ance with the Church naturally led them to adopt
the Church's policy in this respect.

The Church, faithful to her doctrine of the equal-
ity of souls, had consistently used her influence to
secure the freedom of serfs. Churchmen had liber-
ated their own, and had taught that manumission
was an offering acceptable to God. Many landholders,
moved by repentance or the fear of death, executed
deeds or wills changing the status of their serfs to
that of tenants. The burghers of the trading towns
were not unaffected by these motives, but they had
another quite as forcible. Serfs constituted a great
part of the wealth of the feudal nobility; if serfs
were set free the wealth and power of the nobility
were to that extent diminished. Also, the greater
the population of a town the greater were its wealth

208 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

and power. So, there was a steady effort on the
part of the towns to liberate the serfs of their feu-
dal neighbours and induce them to live within their
walls. Sometimes, unwilling to take the position of
openly encouraging runaway serfs, a town would
pass a law that all serfs who had resided in the town
for a year without being claimed, were free. Some-
times the towns purchased a serfs liberty. In Bo-
logna, the year after the revolution in which the
office of captain of the People was originally estab-
lished, the popular party enfranchised over five
thousand serfs. The captain of the People called
together the Ancients, the heads of the guilds, and
the members of the councils, and asked the meeting
if it were their pleasure that the serfs in the territory
of Bologna should be bond or free. The meeting
was eager for enfranchisement; and a plan of
redemption was adopted which was afterward carried
out by the podesta and the captain of the People.
The masters received ten Bolognese pounds for
serfs over fourteen years of age and eight pounds for
those under. The prompt execution of such a measure
shows how absolute was the power of the popular
party, and how completely its democratic policy
worked in harmony with the Christian policy of the
Church. In fact, the similarity and almost identity of
interests and policy between the popular party and
the Church (in spite of quarrels over their respective
titles to little towns of the neighbourhood, which
ended in an interdict and the submission of Bologna)
already foreshadow the ultimate incorporation of the
commune within the territories of the Church.

LTHE CONSTITUTION OF BOLOGNA 209

The abolition of serfage was part of the demo-
cratic movement and shows how flatly the spirit that
animated the little Lombard commonwealths was
opposed to the ideas of government entertained by
Frederick II. The clash between their spirit and his
ideas was as inevitable as the clash between the
Papacy and the Empire; and it was the Lombard
cities quite as much as the Papacy that thwarted and
brought low Frederick's imperial plans.

CHAPTER XVI

THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA

Et noi facciamo prego a M. Domenedio

Che tolla delli nostri quori ogne tenebrio,

Che possiamo tal savere et scienza apprendere,

Che possiamo havere sua grasia et amore,

Et gustare si della scienza che n' habbiamo honore.

BBUNBTTO LATINI.

And we make prayer to the Lord God :

That he take from our hearts all darkness,

That we may acquire knowledge and learning,

That we may have His grace and love,

And so drink of learning that we shall gain honour.

BOLOGNA is famous as a republican commonwealth,
and her democracy serves to teach us the general
pattern of democracy in the trading cities of Italy ;
but the glory of Bologna is not due to what she
had in common with other cities but to what she
alone possessed, her University.

There were, to be sure, several universities in
Italy, the University of Naples, founded by the Em-
peror Frederick in 1224, the University of Padua,
founded in 1222, and others at Arezzo, Reggio,
Vicenza, Vercelli, and Siena, but the University of
Bologna was by far the most famous of all. At
Bologna, as elsewhere, all the liberal arts were
taught, but the study of law, both the civil and the
canon law, wholly outdistanced other studies ; the
law school was the principal department of the Uni-
versity. The liberal arts were grouped together with

THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA 211

medicine in a separate school. Each school was com-
posed of students and of professors, or as they called
themselves, doctors or masters. The most striking
difference between a modern university or law
school and the schools of Bologna is, that in a
modern university the professors constitute the
governing body, whereas at Bologna the students
constituted the governing body. The Emperor Fred-
erick Barbarossa, who was endowed with scant demo-
cratic sympathies, had tried to put the government
of the University in the hands of the professors, but
his system did not succeed. Little by little, and not
without struggles, the students got the upper hand ;
before the end of our century their domination was
well established, and the professors were obliged to
take an oath of obedience to them.

The University was very large, students came
from all western Europe ; it was computed that the
number in residence at one time was as high as ten
thousand. They were of all ages from sixteen to
forty ; some of them were men of wide experience,
many were beneficed clergymen. In order to secure
civic rights (which in the Middle Ages were not
accorded to aliens) the foreign students organized
themselves into guilds. There was one guild of the
students who came from beyond the Alps, and one
of the Italian students not citizens of Bologna. Each
guild was subdivided into clubs, according to the
country or province from which the members came.
There were fourteen clubs in the ultramontane guild,
Frenchmen, Normans, Picards, Burgundians, Poite-
vins, Tourangeaux, Gascons, Provengaux, Catalans,

212 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Spaniards, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, Englishmen ;
and three in the cismontane guild, Lombards, Tus-
cans, and Romans. Each guild elected an academic
podesta, called the rector, who, together with a
council composed of representatives from the several
clubs, administered the affairs of the guild. In im-
portant matters the whole student body, except
paupers, met in general assembly, deliberated and
decided. This simple organization constituted the
government of the school. The rector had civil juris-
diction over members of the guild, which he enforced
by means of their oaths of obedience as well as by
authority of the statutes of the guild ; he acquired
jurisdiction over the professors when they took the
oath of obedience, and virtual authority before that
owing to the students' power of withholding fees or
of putting a ban on any set of courses ; he also ex-
ercised authority over tradesmen and lodging-house
keepers by a simple refusal to deal with them. The
rectors were persons of great consequence ; on cere-
monial occasions they took precedence of cardinals,
archbishops, and bishops, excepting the Bishop of
Bologna ; they were attended by liveried servants,
and wore robes of scarlet with hoods, fur- trimmed.
In dealing with the municipal government the
power of the University lay in its complete freedom
of habitation. It had no buildings, no property, and
could leave Bologna on a day's notice. Several times
it forced the town to terms by emigration. Lectures
were held in a professor's house or in a hired apart-
ment. For great ceremonies, such as the installation
of a rector, the cathedral was used. Students lodged

THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA 213

where they could, or clubbed together and took a
house, bought or hired furniture, and engaged ser-
vants. Lectures were held in the morning and the
afternoon. The long vacation came in September and
October, and there were short vacations at Christmas
and at Easter, and a few holidays for the carnival.
The course was long : after five years a student was
permitted to lecture on one title of the civil law,
after six years on a whole book, and on the comple-
tion of such a course of lectures he became a bache-
lor. To become a doctor, and eligible to the college
of professors, the bachelor was obliged to study six
years longer in canon law, or seven or eight years in
civil law.

Although the government of the University was
in the hands of the students, the professors were
persons of consequence. They wore purple robes,
they were addressed in terms of respect, they were
exempt from military duty, they were ex-officio mem-
bers of the credenza, the city council of six hundred,
and they were often entrusted with important affairs
of state. Like other groups of men belonging to a
common craft, they united in a society, called a col-
lege. The college decided the qualifications of its
own members, subject however to the approval of
the archdeacon of Bologna; for the Church had
taken advantage of its general authority over clerks
and over learning, to lay its hand on the great law
school. Perhaps the Curia, which had a long mem-
ory, recollected the time when the professors of Bo-
logna espoused the cause of Frederick Barbarossa
against Pope Alexander III, and meant to guard

214 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

against any repetition of that offence. The professors
were paid either by the students who attended their
courses, or, according to a system adopted towards
the end of the century, by the city, which attached
salaries to certain chairs ; but the professors acquired
no greater freedom by the new system, for they were
'elected to the endowed chairs by the students from
year to year.

The range of studies at the University was not,
according to our ideas, very ample. There was little
besides civil law, canon law, medicine, and the seven
liberal arts. The Corpus Juris Civilis, put together
under the command of the Emperor Justinian (527^
565) had been recovered from forge tfulness and dis-
use and was laid before students in all its antique
majesty: the Institutes, an elementary and introduct-
ory work, the Code and the Novels which are a
compilation of imperial edicts, and the Digest (or
Pandects) which is a systematic collection of the
opinions of the great Roman lawyers of antiquity.
On this vast body of law a vast mass of gloss and
comment had been composed. The celebrated jur-
ist, Irnerius, who is reputed to be the founder of
the University, led the way, and a long line of
eminent scholars had followed him. Every title and
chapter of the Corpus Juris Civilis was expounded,
and every professor added his load of comment.

The canon law was a close rival to the civil law.
For centuries it had lain uncodified, uncollected,
scattered in many miscellaneous writings, but in the
beginning of the twelfth century, a monk of the
Order of the Camaldoli, Brother Gratian, applied

THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA 215

himself to the laborious task of putting this miscel-
laneous mass of authorities into order. He was not
content to have the canon law less well arranged than
the civil law. Apparently all alone, in the monastery
of St. Felix at Bologna, he brought order out of
chaos. He took the ecclesiastical authorities — de-
crees of Church councils, statements by the Fathers,
edicts of Popes, laws of the early Christian Empe-
rors — and arranged them systematically ; where au-
thorities were at variance, he tried to show which
was the better and therefore the true doctrine of
the Church. His book is called Concordantia dis-
cordantium Canonum, the\ Concord of discordant
Canons, or more briefly, thV Decretum. The book
was a mere digest, but it was universally accepted
as an authoritative exposition of the law. To this
Pope Gregory IX added the papal decretals issued
since Gratian's time. All this was set before stu-
dents of the canon law, as the Corpus Juris Civilis
was set before students of the civil law.

While the school of law as well as the school of
medicine were similar to our postgraduate schools,
the courses in the liberal arts corresponded to the
academic department of an American university;
they were the final instruction in the subjects which
boys studied at school, they formed the completion
of a literary education, and also fitted young men
for practical service in many walks of life. We shall
understand better the study of the liberal arts in the
University of Bologna, if we treat them as a part of
ordinary education. First of all, children heard the
romantic tales of ill-fated Troy and of all-conquering

216 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Rome, and studied their letters at home in an ABC
book, an abecedarium, which served for both Latin
and Italian ; next they learned, perhaps without un-
derstanding the meaning, to recite psalms in Latin
and to sing Latin hymns. A little older, boys went
to school. Girls commonly received no literary edu-
cation, unless they were admitted to a nunnery.
There were many schools ; some were attached to
monasteries, some to cathedrals, some were taught
by professional grammarians, some by clerks who
kept school for a time in order to support themselves
until some occupation more to their taste should pre-
sent itself.

The schools were grammar schools and started
boys in the study of the liberal arts. There were
seven liberal arts, three grouped together as the tri-
ple path, trivium, grammar, rhetoric and logic, and
four, grouped as the fourfold path, quadrivium,
arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music ; but in
the lower schools, little was taught beside grammar
and some rhetoric. Grammar was Latin grammar.
Latin was the language of the Church, of the law,
of learning, of all formal and ceremonious affairs, as
well as of literature; Latin grammar was the only
door for those who wished to have any education,
and every schoolboy had to study Latin grammar.
There were almost as many Latin grammars then as
there are now, all based on the old Roman grammars
of Priscian and of Donatus —

quel Donate
ch' alia prim' arte degn6 por la mano.

That of Donatus was a little book of a few pages,

THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA 217

— De octo partibus orationis — which described
the eight parts of speech. Priscian's grammar was
much more advanced ; it aimed to make the study of
Latin a science, and cited so many classical quota-
tions that it served in a manner for an anthology.
Priscian's method of teaching grammar was to take
the first line of each book of the ^Eneid and discuss
each word in all its grammatical relations. Gram-
mar, however, had a wider scope than the subject
matter of our Latin grammars. Boys read extracts
from the Latin classics, prose and poetry, fables,
proverbs and suchlike. In fact the study of gram-
mar was the elementary study of Latin literature.
For beginners there were many school-books written
in brief sentences, full of wise saws and moral pre-
cepts, which the boys learned by heart or translated
into the vernacular. Such a book was the Distichs
of Cato, written nobody knows just when and as-
cribed to the famous old Koman, Cato Major. This
book exists both in Latin and Italian. It is a mere
string of pious counsels : " Say your prayers to God,
love your parents, be dutiful to your relations, obey
the law, walk with the good, do not offer your ad-
vice before you are asked, be pure, be polite, give
way to your elders, respect your teacher, avoid dice,
learn your lessons, do good to the righteous, be
modest, diligent," etc. By such books the schoolboy
advanced to the study of the classics, Cicero, Vir-
gil, Horace, Ovid, Lucan, Statius, Pliny the Elder,
Sallust, Livy, Boethius, and to the study of Chris-
tian authors as well.

The dictionaries were few and of slender merit:

218 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTUKY

there was, for instance, an old one of an earlier cen-
tury written by Papias, a Lombard, or that by Uguc-
cione, of Pisa, at one time a professor at Bologna
and afterward Bishop of Ferrara, which bore the
title Huguitionis Pisani Magnae Derivationes sive
Dictionarium Etymologicum. Dante cites it in the
Convivio for the derivation of " auctor, author " ;
he is also indebted to it for the title of his great
poem, Commedia: He states in his celebrated letter
which proffers the dedication of the Paradiso to Can
Grande della Scala : " The title of the work is, ' Here
beginneth the Comedy of Dante Alighieri, a Floren-
tine by birth, not by character.' To understand
which, be it known that comedy is derived from
comus ( a village/ and oda, which is * song' ; whence
comedy is, as it were, ' rustic song.' ' ' TJguccione's
dictionary says : " Oda, that is, song or hymn, is
compounded with comus, that is, a village, and makes
comedia, that is, a village song or village hymn, be-
cause it treats of village and rustic matters, and is
like daily speech." And in many other cases Dante
uses this dictionary to obtain the derivation of
words, as, for instance, in his description of the
hypocrites in Malebolge (Inf. xxm, 61) who wear
mantles all gold on the outside and lead within,
TJguccione says : " Crisis, a Greek word, meaning
. . . gold ; so by composition from crisis comes
hypocrite (a dissembler, a cheat, a person who coun-
terfeits another, and is called hypocrite) from ypos,
which means under, and crisis, which means gold ;
as if gilded on the outside, because on the outside
he seems to be good, while inwardly he is bad."

THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA 219

Rhetoric in old Roman days had meant the art of
the orator; Cicero and Quintilian wrote famous
treatises upon it, and their treatises served for later
writers to quarry from. To-day rhetoric commonly
means the art of writing. In the thirteenth century
it had larger purposes as we see if we open the text-
books written then, for instance the treatise on
rhetoric by Fra Guidotto of Bologna, a book com-
posed about the year 1260 and dedicated to Man-
fred, son of the Emperor Frederick. Guidotto's
prologue gives a brief account of Cicero : " When
the great and high-born Julius Caesar, first Emperor
of Rome, held sway, Marcus Tullius Cicero was born,
' maestro et trovatore de la grande scienza di rethor-
ica, cioe de ben parlare,' a master and inventor of
the great science of speaking well ; he was a man full
of life, amiable, and steadfast in kindness and in the
right, tall of stature, of well knit limbs, and in feats
of arms a maraviglioso cavaliere, of tempered cour-
age, endowed with great wit, and furnished with
knowledge and good sense." After he has intro-
duced us to Cicero, Guidotto says that " this science
is the most important of all branches of knowledge,
owing to the need of speaking daily on matters of
importance, as in making laws, in civil and criminal
suits, in municipal affairs, in carrying on war and
leading troops, in ministering comfort to knights
who undergo chances and changes in empire, king-
dom, or barony, and in governing peoples, cities and
towns." It seems odd to us to ascribe so wide a
scope to the benefits to be got from rhetoric, but we
must remember the tremendous prestige of Roman

220 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

oratory, the legendary fame of Cicero and Julius
Caesar, and that for those who were not to study law,
rhetoric was the main part of a civil education. Be-
sides, the art of speaking was important. On cere-
monious occasions, such as an embassy to another
city, the reception of a new podesta, the funeral of
a great personag-e, a speech in Latin was necessary ;
in the municipal councils, in the guild meetings,
only three or four were allowed to speak, and the
audience no doubt expected and demanded a certain
kind of formal speech ; in fact, the capacity to make
a formal speech was the badge of an educated man.
For such reasons, though the orator had no such
opportunity as in the Roman courts of law or before
the conscript fathers, a training in rhetoric was a
necessary part of education.

A much more distinguished person than Guidotto,
Brunetto Latini of Florence, who had been ambas-
sador to the highly cultivated court of Alphonso
the Wise, king of Castile, and knew something of
public and official life, devotes a part of his encyclo-
paedia, IA Limes dou Tresor (1262-66), to rhetoric.
He says it is a science that teaches us to speak fully
and perfectly both in public and in private, and
that the aim of the art is to teach the speaker to
speak in such a way that those who hear him shall
believe what he says. He follows Cicero, De Orators,
in dividing the subject into five divisions: the first
thing is to find out what you are going to say ; the
second, to marshal your arguments; the third, to
suit your words to the matter ; the fourth, to culti-
vate the memory so chat you can learn your speech

THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA 221

by heart ; and last, to study bearing, gesture, diction
and the whole subject of delivery. Brunetto also
says, citing the great names of Aristotle, Cicero
and Boethius, that rhetoric is the art of governing;
but though he includes his chapters on the govern-
ment of cities in the same division of his encyclo-
paedia with his chapters on rhetoric, he makes a
separate section of them.

Sometimes the text-book on rhetoric was specially
adapted for training an advocate or a preacher, as
the Ars Loquendi et Tacendi, the Art of Speaking
and of Holding the Tongue, written by Albertano
of Brescia, somewhere about 1245, who was an ad-
vocate himself. He begins with a distich : —

Quis, quid, cui dicas,

Cur, quomodo, quando, requiras,

Who, what, to whom to speak,

Why, how, and when, be sure to seek, —

and then expounds the ideas suggested by each of
these questions. Like most men of his time, Alber-
tano appeals to authority rather than to reason, and
stuffs his treatise full of quotations taken, often no
doubt at second hand, from the classics of antiquity
and of the Middle Ages, as well as from the Old
and New Testaments. His treatise is as much ethical
as rhetorical; "Finally," he says, "I give you this
as a general rule, that we must not think that we
are at liberty to do or say things which wound
piety, charity, or modesty, or (to speak in a large
sense) which go counter to good morals." He is
very sententious, and the justice of his rules is be-

222 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

yond all cavil. But if his book seems a little prig-
gish, it is because education (owing, perhaps, to the
fact that, for better or worse, it had been shaped
by ecclesiastical hands) was intended to have an
ethical purpose, and perhaps Albertano had learned
piety in adversity, for he was imprisoned in Cremona
for many years by Frederick II. While in prison he
wrote several moral treatises, two of which had the
honour of furnishing material to Chaucer for Mel'
ibeus and The Merchant's Tale.

If rhetoric, as the art of the orator, did not really
play so large a part in education at the University
of Bologna, as one might infer from the text-books
on the subject, it became, as the art of the writer,
a matter of great consequence in preparing young
men for practical affairs. This branch of rhetoric
was known as the art of composition, ars dictaminis ;
it, indeed, had always existed, but with the Romans
it had played a very subordinate part. The art of
composition had two divisions : it taught the proper
way of writing letters, and of drawing up documents,
especially legal documents. The accepted text-book
at the opening of the century had been written over
a hundred years before by Alberich, a Benedictine
monk of Monte Cassino. Perhaps he was at the
monastery at the time of Abbot Desiderius, famous
in the history of art. Alberich divides a letter into
five parts : the greeting, the benevolentice captatio
(that is, the endeavour to engratiate oneself with
one's correspondent), the narration of facts, the
petition, and the ending; and gives counsels and
rules, and many models, some taken from archives;

THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA 223

for official letters on political matters. The object of
a course in Latin composition was to train young
men to fill the position of secretary or clerk in the
Papal Chancery, in a bishop's court, or in the office
of a podesta, or to become notaries, clerks in busi-
ness houses, factors for merchants, and bailiffs for
nobles. The demand for such an education was so
great that the celebrated Doctor Boncompagno
devoted his courses in rhetoric at Bologna almost
entirely to Latin composition.

The rest of the seven liberal arts — logic, arith-
metic, music, geometry and astronomy — belong no
more to the University of Bologna than to the
schools and universities of other cities ; nevertheless
I will repeat what Brunetto Latini says about them
in Li Livres dou Tresor, because we may feel sure
that Dante read it. "Logic [Brunetto states] is the
science that teaches us to adduce reasons and to
demonstrate why we should do some things and not
others; this demonstration can only be made by
means of words; therefore logic is the science by
which we can explain and prove why and how a prop-
osition is as true as we allege it to be. There are
three ways of doing this, and so there are three
divisions of the science : dialectic, efidique (?), and
sophistry. The first of these is dialectic, which
teaches us to discuss, argue and debate with one
another, and ask questions and frame answers. The
second is efidique, which teaches us how to prove
that what we have said is true, that is, by right, by
reason, and sound arguments. The third branch of
logic is sophistry, which teaches how to prove that

224 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

what we have said is correct, but by perverse ingen-
uity, by false reasons and sophisms, that is by argu-
ments that have the appearance and outside of truth,
but in which there is nothing but falsehood." In
other words, logic, according to Brunetto Latini, is
the science that teaches how to distinguish good from
bad reasoning. The main text-books were transla-
tions from Aristotle, and treatises by Boethius.

Of the quadrivium, the mathematical sciences,
Brunetto says : " The first is arithmetic which teaches
us to count, to compute, to add, to subtract, multiply
and divide ; it also includes teaching the use of the
abacus [a Roman instrument for counting by means
of beads strung on wires which were stretched across
a frame] and algorism. The second is music, which
teaches us how to make tunes and songs, and sounds
in accord with one another on zithers, organs and
other instruments, for the pleasure of the listeners
or for divine worship in church. The third is geom-
etry, by which we know the measures and propor-
tions of things in length, breadth and thickness ; by
the subtilities of geometry the Seven Sages succeeded
in finding the size of the heavens and the earth, the
distance between them, and many other wonderful
measurements. The fourth science is astronomy,
which teaches us the order of the heavens, of the
firmament and of the stars, and the courses of the
seven planets through the twelve signs of the zodiac,
and how weather changes to hot or cold, or to dry
time, or to wind, according to a law that is estab-
lished in the stars."

It is evident that these studies were very rudi-

THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA 225

mentary. Arithmetic, besides its practical value in
the counting-room, mainly served to compute the
date of Easter, a bit of knowledge necessary in a
priest's education. About the opening of the century
the Hindu-Arabic system of notation was adopted,
with the use of the zero, and some elements of alge-
bra, to all of which Brunetto probably refers under
the term algorism, but it is obvious that at the time
he wrote the use of the primitive abacus had not yet
been discarded. By this time a knowledge of Euclid
had come in, chiefly from Arabian sources, and also
a knowledge of the Ptolemaic system through Ptol-
emy's astronomical work, known as the Almagest,
and through the treatises of Alf raganus, an Arabian
astronomer, with whom Dante was very familiar.

Medicine was studied by aid of books written or
complied by Arabian physicians, and of treatises
derived or purporting to come from Galen and Hip-
pocrates. But in order to study medicine to best
advantage students did not go to the University
of Bologna; they went to the medical school at
Salerno in Frederick's kingdom, where the wisdom
of Arabia and Persia supplemented the knowledge
of anatomy and of medicinal herbs that had come
down from Greece.

The University of Bologna, with its professors, its
students, its school of law, its courses on grammar
and rhetoric, seems like a pleasant resting-place with-
drawn from the highroad of conventional mediaeval
history, a road frequented chiefly by kings, princes,
prelates, soldiers, podestas and friars ; and yet almost
everybody goes by without a word about this se-

226 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

eluded spot. Dante, who studied all branches of
knowledge, who was eagerly interested in philosophy
and poetry as well as in politics, has no reference to
the University, or but one of a most veiled character.
Salimbene, the Franciscan friar, whose memoirs cor-
respond in a way to Horace Walpole's letters, barely
alludes to it, once by mention of a master of gram-
mar, and once by repeating a sibylline prophecy —
nidus scholasticus minorabitur, the scholars' nest
shall be brought low ; and yet he speaks of Bologna
a hundred times. The chroniclers of Bologna talk
of battles and forays, of castles lost and won, of
marches and countermarches, and they sometimes
record the freezing of the river Po, the high price
of vegetables, eclipses, floods or falling towers, but
they regard the University as beneath the dignity
of history ; or, perhaps, for they have recorded the
attempt made by the Emperor Frederick to suppress
the University, they regard it as part of the estab-
lished order of things, like the river Po or the Apen-
nines. However this may be, the University of Bo-
logna was one of the moulding forces, not merely of
Italian history but also of European history.

CHAPTER XVII

ON SOME UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS

See ! Here they come !

More proud than pursuivants, sly as confessors,
With step scholastic and with time-worn gowns,
The underpaid, sweet, spectacled Professors.

Anonymous.

THE great University of Bologna drew students to
itself from many foreign lands, because it taught and
expounded the jurisprudence of a civilization very
much superior to the civilization of the thirteenth
century. As peoples became more civilized, both
north and south of the Alps, as the science of gov-
ernment grew, as business expanded, as property
increased, a knowledge of Roman law became of
greater and greater value ; and to clerks hoping for
advancement in the Church knowledge of the canon
law was of prime necessity. Naturally students of
both branches of jurisprudence flocked to Bologna.
The University of Bologna also offered the best edu-
cation in the liberal arts that there was to be had in
Italy. But the study of law and of the liberal arts
would not have flourished there as it did, had it not
been for the learning and talents of the professors
of the University. It was they who gave to their
University its great renown.

Ever since the famous Irnerius had lectured on
the civil law at Bologna (1100-1130?) a series of

228 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

learned professors had honourably maintained the
reputation of the University. At the beginning of
our century Professor Azo had been the acknow-
ledged head of the legal faculty. After his death,
about 1220, two very distinguished scholars disputed
the preeminence, Accursius and Odofredus. Accur-
sius was a Florentine by birth, of humble origin, but,
his biographer says, of refined tastes and habits. He
went to Bologna to study law rather older than was
usual, perhaps because of straitened circumstances.
He studied under Azo, took his doctor's degree, and
taught at the University for forty years. He was
very successful, and made so much money from his
classes that he bought a large estate of many acres
with a charming villa, a few miles east of Bologna
by the little river Idice. He also owned a fine house
in the centre of the city. His chief fame, however,
was not as a lecturer but as a commentator. He con-
ceived the idea of winning a name for himself and
of lightening the burden of students, by making a
kind of general digest of all previous comments,
glosses, notes and expositions upon the Roman law,
together with his own criticisms and explanations, so
that this one vast comment should supplant all that
had gone before, and the student have nothing to
consult but the Corpus Juris Civilis itself and his
comprehensive commentary. It is said that in order
to have leisure for this herculean task he gave up
his lectures for a long time. But there is another ver-
sion of the story. Accursius learned that his rival
Odofredus entertained a similar plan of combining
and fusing all prior glosses into one, and became

ON SOME UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS 229

very apprehensive lest Odof redus should execute the
plan first. He shut himself up in his house, sent for
the physician, ordered prescriptions from the apothe-
cary, and stayed indoors, as if he were seriously in-
disposed, until he had completely finished his task.
Odof redus dawdled, thinking that while Accursius
was sick in bed he might take his time, and had the
mortification to find himself outwitted by his Floren-
tine rival. Perhaps, however, this story is due to
Bolognese jealousy. The gloss of Accursius was a
triumphant success ; old sects of disputing commen-
tators were reconciled ; young men were bidden to
hold to his interpretation, as a pilot clings to his
tiller or as Bolognese soldiers stand fast by their car-
roccio ; and in course of time the gloss itself was

Mlossed by admiring scholars.
Accursius, like many professors of civil law at
Bologna, was an imperialist in politics. The old
Roman doctrine that the will of the Emperor is law
was firmly lodged in his conservative mind. His po-
litical theories, however, did not interfere with his
loyalty to Bologna, and on his death his body was
buried in a noble sarcophagus near the Franciscan
church. His four sons became professors of law, and
the eldest, Francis Accursius (1225-1293), acquired
a reputation almost equal to his father's. When King
Edward I stopped at Bologna on his homeward way
from Syria, he invited Francis to go with him to
England. Francis accepted and went ; he served the
king in important matters, lectured at Oxford and
also in France, at Toulouse. Like his father he was
a Ghibelline. During his absence the popular party

230 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

expelled the imperial party from the city, and a de-
cree of confiscation was rendered against his prop-
erty; but on his return he obtained a revocation of
the decree, and lived and died in general esteem.

Odofredus (12007-1265), "mundi sensus, ju-
risque profundi lux, foedus pacis, doctorum flos, —
the wit of the world, the light of the law, the bond
of peace, the flower of learned men," was a native
of Bologna, and somewhat younger than Accursius
senior. In his youth he travelled in France and
Apulia, apparently in the capacity of judge attend-
ant upon a podesta; at the age of thirty-two or
thirty-three he returned to Bologna and devoted
himself to lectures and comments on the civil law.
Vanquished as a commentator by the shrewd Floren-
tine, Accursius, he held his own not only as a lec-
turer but also as a debater in the contests of learning
and wit which the professors held with one another.
He, too, became rich, and pleasant things are told
of his generosity in his dealings with the students.

Odofredus and Accursius were great men in their
day and acquired reputations such as Sir William
Blackstone or Chancellor Kent have with us ; and
although their figures are dim and their subject does
not touch history dramatically or emotionally, yet
we understand them. They do not show in any con-
spicuous way the stamp of the thirteenth century.
They might have lived in the reign of Justinian or
uttered their opinions side by side with Ulpian and
Papinian; or they might have lectured at the Har-
vard Law School with Story and Greenleaf. They
fit easily into our own experience ; and for that rea-

ON SOME UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS 231

son do not teach us what traits, what individual
characteristics, distinguish the thirteenth century
from those that went before or those that have come
since. If, however, we turn to another study popular
at Bologna, ars dictaminis, the art of composition,
and follow the career of one of its professors, such
as Doctor Boncompagno, whom we know better than
the others, or read one of his text-books, we find our-
selves at once in a strange, primitive world, in the
midst of children, as it were, who toil heroically over
the rudiments of knowledge.

Boncompagno was born a few miles out of Flor-
ence at Signa, a place which seemed to him " endowed
with indescribable pleasantness on account of its
running waters and its abundance of olives." He was
a contemporary of his learned countryman, the elder
Accursius, and at about the same time as he, went
to the University of Bologna. There he devoted
himself to the liberal arts, took his doctor's degree,
and wrote a book on rhetoric so highly esteemed that
it was crowned with laurel, amid great ceremonies,
first at Bologna and afterwards at Padua. He was
very clever and very successful ; Salimbene calls him
"a great master of grammar." He wrote several
books on the art of composition to which he gave,
as appropriate to rhetorical treatises, what seem to
us rather fanciful and flowery names, The Olive,
The Cedar, Myrrh. They teach business rather than
literature, how to draw up legal documents, to draft
statutes and to prepare testaments, and were prima-
rily intended for students who meant to become no-
taries. Boncompagno was ingenious, active-minded,

232 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

and full of plans for new ways of doing things; he
was a typical Florentine. He proposed a radical
change in the character of the University, — that

H(as it were) this learned mind should have a body,
that the schools should have an appropriate building.
Such a plan was utterly subversive of all accepted
ideas, and no doubt was regarded as scandalous and
revolutionary. "The building devoted to university
studies," he says, "should be built in a place where
the air is fresh and pure; it should be far from the
neighbourhood of women, from the bustle of the
market-place, from the noise of horses and of bark-
ing dogs, from the canal, from disturbing sounds of
all kinds, from the creaking and smells of carts. The
building should be square. The windows should be ar-
ranged in such a way that there should be neither too
much nor too little light; and two or three should be
placed so that the professor may look out in summer
time and see the trees, gardens and orchards; for the
sight of pleasant things strengthens the mind. The
dormitories should be upstairs, with rooms of proper
height. Everything should be very clean. The walls
of the lecture room should be painted green, and
there should be no pictures except such as stimulate
the mind to intellectual things. The stairs should
not be too steep, and there should be but one en-
trance. In the lecture-room the professor's chair
should stand on some kind of platform, and be high
enough to enable him to see who come in. The seats
for the students should all be on the floor, and so
placed that no one could interfere with the profes-
sor's range of vision. The older and better scholars

ON SOME UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS 233

should have front seats; and students of the same
country or province should sit together. Regard
should be had to their office, rank and merit. Stu-
dents should always keep the same seats." The time
was not ripe for the plan. Such an edifice would
have been a hostage to the Commune of Bologna,
and the rectors would have been obliged to obey
the city magistrates. Boncompagno himself did not
expect to see it adopted ; one inclines to the suspicion
that he merely wished to irritate his conservative
colleagues.

In his courses he did introduce innovations; the
consequence was a serious quarrel. Before his com-
ing the professors of grammar and rhetoric had fol-
lowed undisturbed an old-fashioned method of teach-
ing which enjoyed the prestige of being taught in
the well-known school at Orleans in France. This
method, at least according to Boncompagno's think-
ing, was cringingly deferential to ancient models,
full of affectations, elegant quotations and stale
saws; whereas he, in his own mind, represented ori-
ginality, patriotism, and good sense. He expressed
his opinions freely; he even said that these old-
fashioned professors sold to raw ignorant youths
gilded copper for gold. They resented his criticism ;
this made him see (so he says) that their impudent
attacks on him could only be stopped by putting
them publicly to shame. To accomplish this he gave
loose rein to his Florentine love of practical jokes.
A letter was received by the faculty of rhetoric,
purporting to come from one Robert, a French pro-
fessor, which in grandiloquent phrases announced

234 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

that he would come and confute Boncompagno,
"the prince of Italian professors." On the day set
everybody, professors and students, crowded into
the cathedral. The adverse faction felt sure that
they should see Boncompagno utterly confounded;
but Boncompagno sat in the tribune smiling and
asking, "Where is Robert?" "Why does he not
come?" The others answered, "He has been delayed
a little, he will come soon, just wait a moment ; "
while some of the audience pointed at a stranger and
said, "Perhaps that is Robert." Finally, when pa-
tience could hold out no longer, Boncompagno got
up, and after derisively demanding, "Where is
Robert? Let him step forth," announced that it was
he who had written the letter and tricked them all.
The hoax was a complete success; Boncompagno's
enemies were dumbfounded while his supporters, wild
with delight, lifted him on their shoulders and car-
ried him away in triumph. What delicacy of wit
must have graced the jokes of the students, if this
joke scored an intellectual triumph among the pro-
fessors! One shudders at the thought.

Boncompagno sets forth in several books his the-
ories concerning the proper way to teach the art of
composition. His method may be better than the
method he attacked, but his books are very primitive.
When these early men follow a great highway of
knowledge, built by the ancients, as in law or the-
ology, they deal with questions after a fashion not
very different from our own ; but where they make
their own paths, as in painting, for instance, or in
the art of writing, they are like ignorant children.

ON SOME UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS 235

Boucoinpagno's treatise. The Palm, which, so he
says, enjoyed great success at the University and
put his enemies to rout, seems to us as primitive as
the paintings or sculpture of contemporary artists.
It is a little book of some twenty pages, intended
rather for teachers in the preparation of their lectures
than for students ; it deals briefly with various mat-
ters in the art of writing : composition itself, prose,
a grant of privilege, a testament, the parts of a letter,
— salutation, narration, petition, conclusion, — punc-
tuation, minor clauses and parables. It reveals to
us the difficulties that beset the men who dig the
foundations of knowledge. " I admit," he says, " that
I do not know where the epistolary art was discov-
ered. In Greece I was told that when the Israelites
were under Pharaoh's yoke they did not dare speak
to one another, and therefore Moses invented writing
and communicated with them in that way. Others
say that the art was invented in Noah's ark. I am
wholly ignorant whether these explanations are true
or false."

His self-confidence and his love of humour, how-
ever, enliven the book. He gives but one example of
the proper form for beginning a letter : " Suppose,"
he says, "that the Pope writes to the Emperor on
one matter or on several. If it is on one matter the
writer may begin in this way : Since We are bound
by our office to be assiduous in admonishing all the
sons of the Church lest they be caught in the snares
of earthly temptation, much more attentively We
ought to counsel your Imperial Majesty by apostolic
letters, so that you may pass through the things of

236 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

this world in such a way as not to lose those of
eternity, etc. But if in the same letter the Pope
wishes to touch upon a second matter he may pro-
ceed thus : Moreover We commend most heartily to
your Excellency our beloved son, Doctor J5., whom
We and our brethren from an intimate knowledge
of his piety and learning love most dearly, begging
your Excellency that on account of our request you
will treat him with every consideration and give a
favourable answer to his requests." To whom can
he refer under this discreet initial ?

Perhaps the most original of Boncompagno's
books is the Wheel of Venus. He hits upon the in-
genious plan of combining a tale of gallantry and an
epistolary form-book. As a story-teller he is much
more modern than the authors of the tales in the
Novellino and points the way to Boccaccio ; but he
cannot lay aside his professional method of writing
a text-book. He tries most unwisely to kill two birds
with one stone. If he had devoted himself wholly to
story-telling, with his wit, his inventiveness, his
fancy, he might have been the originator of a branch
of belles-lettres, of light literature, and have won
for himself part of the fame that has fallen to
Boccaccio.

The story begins, after a pretty introduction in
which Venus bids him write, with a letter from a
lover to the lady of his admiration : " To the noble
and wise Lady G., beautiful by elegance and breed-
ing." Here the professor interrupts the story-teller
with notes and bits of advice for his students : Do
not use countrified expressions such as — " To my

ON SOME UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS 237

Sweetest friend, as many greetings as there are
leaves on the trees, stars in the sky, sands on the
shore," that is bad form ; and, remember, that all
women like to be flattered for their beauty, be ful-
some. Then he makes a digression to consider the
station of the lover, high or low ; this he does ap-
parently for the sake of a gibe at the clergy, for he
intimates that there should be a difference between
the love-letter of a bishop and that of a mere priest.
Then follows another digression to consider the
three periods for falling in love : before an introduc-
tion, after an introduction, and before the lover has
ever seen the lady. After these interruptions the
letter proceeds : " When I beheld you among a glor-
ious company of girls, the fire of love flared up in
my heart, all of a sudden I was a new man. No
wonder, you shone among them like the morning
star that flies before Aurora to herald the day ; hair
like spun gold hanging about delicately rosy ears ;
eyebrows like strings of pearls ; ruby lips with ivory
teeth," etc. More notes follow, and then comes the
heroine's answer. She is complaisant. How shall a
meeting be contrived ? Shall it be in church, or shall
his falcon fly into her father's garden and he pursue
it ? In this way the letters carry one through a love
affair of a very frank and pagan character. Besides
the annotations and bits of advice, the author has
inserted a variety of paradigms for love letters, which
according to our more prudish notions, should not
be presented to young men under any circumstances.
And at the end Boncompagno says that, if he has
been rather too free of speech, the reader should

238 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

remember the Song of Solomon, in which are many
things that, if taken according to the letter, are more
likely to stir the lower nature than the higher ; but
let the reader adopt for The Wheel of Venus the
same wise rule of interpretation applied to the Song
and he will perceive the really moral purpose in it.
In this hybrid book the reference to Venus, the
description of the lady, the outspoken fling at the
Church's interpretation of the Song of Solomon, in-
dicate the first blossoming of that kind of taste which
became so pronounced a feature of the Renaissance.
Boncompagno has been rightly called a humanist of
the thirteenth century ; not because he had a great
love of the classics, but because he shared the state
of mind of the humanists of the fifteenth century.
At the same time he undoubtedly wished to draw
students away from the courses of his unfriendly
colleagues, and perhaps the Wheel of Venus is less
a serious attempt to write a tale of gallantry than to
attract the more frivolous young men to his own
classes. At any rate it is plain that the University
of Bologna was not the monastic and ascetic place
that the glosses of Accursius and Odofredus might
lead us to suppose.

Boncompagno in several ways is typical of his
century and of Bologna, if not of the conservative
University. He had great admiration for the Roman
past; and that was the cause of his respect for
classical literature rather than a result of that re-
spect. It is true that Boncompagno's sentiment for
the classics is somewhat obscured by his conceited
insistence upon his own originality, but it comes to

ON SOME UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS 239

light here and there, as in the pretty description of
the appearance of the goddess in the prologue to
The Wheel of Venus, in two little books one On
Friendship and one On the Evils of Old Age,
which show that he had Cicero's De Amicitia and
De Senectute in mind, and more clearly in a history
of the siege of Ancona, conducted by the Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa, in which he models himself
on Sallust and Livy. Respect for the Latin classics
he shared with all the educated world ; but in Bon-
compagno respect for classical literature unites and
mingles with an almost passionate patriotism. All
his countrymen were full of local pride and of loy-
alty to their city ; only a few shared his patriotism
for Italy. " Italy/' he says, " cannot and must not
be tributary, for Freedom has chosen to make its
home in Italy ; she is no tributary province but a
queen among provinces. . . . All the provinces of the
world ought to be subject to the people of Italy."
This was the sentiment to which Innocent III ap-
pealed when he drove the German freebooters from
Umbria and the March of Ancona. And with Bon-
compagno this love of liberty shows itself in unex-
pected places. For instance, in one of his books he
takes advantage of a grammatical disquisition on
clauses to gibe at all the nations he has heard of.
The Armenians and the Greeks, he says, let their
beards grow long so that they may appear of a seri-
ous disposition ; the Slavs, though they have human
forms, are more properly classed as beasts than as
men; the Bohemians are handsome and fierce in
battle, but they eat meat half-cooked and get dis-

240 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

gustingly drunk ; the Germans are a laughing-stack
for their fury, the Allobrogi (Savoyards?) for their
thievery, the French for their arrogance ; the men
of the March are simpletons, the Romagnuols double-
tongued cheats; the people of Provence are liars,
the Calabrians timid, the Apulians pusillanimous ;
the Tuscans manage their affairs well, and if it were
not for fraud and their envious disposition, their
virtues would shine out. But when he speaks of the
Lombards, he says, " they are the patrons of liberty,
noble defenders of their rights, and as they have
fought most often for liberty they are deserv-
edly the senators of Italy."

Boncompagno's love of freedom did not confine
itself to politics ; it was broader than that and op-
posed what seemed to him the tyranny of fanaticism.
He has a touch of the spirit that animated Voltaire
or Heinrich Heine, and like them his weapon was
satire. For instance, while he was at Bologna a
Dominican friar, John of Vicenza, came to preach.
John was an eloquent, impassioned orator, with
great power over his audiences; wonderful stories
are told how he moved all kinds of people to tears,
drove sinners to repentance, and persuaded enemies
to embrace and swear eternal friendship. His meet-
ings were somewhat like those of the Salvation
Army ; but he was not a spiritual-minded man. He
used his religious influence to obtain political power.
Other friars, also eager to acquire influence with
their congregations, resorted to absolute trickery.
Boncompagno, in defence of reason, resented what
he regarded as an appeal to superstition, and wrote

ON SOME UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS 241

satirical doggerel on Brother John. It was a brave
thing to do, as John at the time was a great person.
Here is the stanza that Salimbene remembered :

Et Johannes Johannigat
et saltando choreizat.
Modo salta, modo salta,
qui celorum petit alta !
Saltat iste, saltat ille,
resaltant cohortes mille,
saltat chorus dominarum
saltat dux Venetiarum !

Brother Johnny johnnies it o'er us
And while dancing sings a chorus.
Dance up high, dance up high,
Ye who wish to reach the sky !
Dance now here-y, dance now there-y,
Dance now all the military,
Dance, ye ladies, like the Grecians,
Dance, you doge of the Venetians !

The latter part of Boncompagno's life is not well
known. He left the University from time to time
— perhaps that was the only way of establishing
peace with his colleagues — and travelled; he went
to Germany, to Greece, to the Holy Land. He was
not prudent, like Accursius and Odof redus ; he laid
up no riches, but danced and sang in the summer
season, and when old age came on he had nothing.
At the suggestion of his friends he went to Rome,
hoping that the Curia would give him some office.
The time was unfavourable, the Curia was at war with
the Emperor ; and perhaps it did not entertain the
high opinion of his piety that Boncompagno had
put so flippantly into his epistolary form for use by

242 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

the Papal Chancery. He was refused, and went at
last to Florence where he died in a hospital. The last
book he wrote, On the Evils of Old Age, is a sad
little book. Cicero, he says, has spoken well of old
age, but " for my part I can see no good in it, ex-
cept indeed that an old man has a chance to repent."
There is a cynical element in the book, and but one
bright spot, where he speaks of Venice, and then
his rhetoric flares up with a final flash : " Her floor
is the sea, her roof the heavens, and her walls are
the courses of the waters — she takes away the power
of speech." Poor old man ! It was long since he had
played his pranks on sober professors of the Uni-
versity, or listened to the nightingales sing on the
blossoming hill outside the walls of Bologna.

Another professor of grammar, Guido Faba,
taught at the University a little later than Boncom-
pagno. He wrote a book of epistolary forms to serve
for all sorts of people and all kinds of occasions. In
those days people were exceedingly ceremonious in
their forms of address, and little differences that we
should hardly notice were weighted with signifi-
cance ; and students were obliged to learn the con-
ventions of epistolary etiquette. For a form of intro-
duction to a request, he gives : " I am obliged to ask
favours of you so often that I am ashamed, and you
would not have to bear the asking, were not friend-
ship of so true a temper that it endureth all things
with patience," or, more humbly, " My littleness in
all devotion supplicates your lordship." And, for a
love letter to a lady : " When I behold your radiant
person, from my exceeding joy methinks I am in

ON SOME UNIVEKSITY PKOFESSORS 243

Paradise ; " or, more formally : " To the noble and
wise lady, P. [it was well understood that nothing
of a lady's name except the initial should be written
in a love letter] — adorned with the elegance of vir-
tues, greeting, and the utmost fidelity and service.
Love of your shining qualities has so taken me,
Maiden splendid, rose-like and serene, that day and
night I am thinking of nothing but your beauty.
When I behold it, my soul is glorified as if I were
rapt to the joys of Paradise." It is evident that the
study of the ars dictaminis embraces matters not
included in a modern curriculum. Another letter
shows that the ordinary student at a university then
was very much like an ordinary student at a univer-
sity now, although his forms of expression are dif-
ferent ; it is a letter from a son to his father : " I
have come to the beautiful, delectable, and glorious
meadow of philosophy, and I want to gather flow-
ers of divers colours to make a wreath of wonderful
beauty that shall shine round my head in our city,
and give forth to my friends and relations an agree-
able odour, but the custodian of the garden says no,
unless I make him pleasant and suitable gifts. I
have nothing to pay. If your generosity wishes me
to arrive at such honour, be pleased to send me
money at once, so that I may stay and gather pre-
cious fruit in the garden which I have entered."
What father could refuse so fragrant a petition?
As such forms were common in the books compiled
by university professors, one can hardly help a per-
haps mean suspicion that the professors were inter-
ested in the weight of the student's purses.

244 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

These professors of grammar and rhetoric did not
enjoy the dignified esteem that attended the profes-
sors of civil law ; they did not die at their country-
places in delectable villas, nor in their own town-
houses ; and no monumental tombs mark where their
bones lie. Nevertheless a Boncompagno had this
advantage over an Accursius : he lived more keenly
the fleeting life of the time, he enjoyed more its
sunshine and its shadows, he understood and ex-
pressed its moods better. And if monuments were
to be put up to men because they tell us the history
of their own times, two men of the thirteenth cent-
ury that should have them are Professor Boncom-
pagno and Friar Salimbene, surprised though each
might be to find a statue erected to the other.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE NOBLES OF THE NORTH (1230-1243)
Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,

At their great emperor's call, as next in worth,
Came singly where he stood on the hare strand,
While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof ?

Paradise Lost, Bk. i.

THE peace patched up between the Pope and Em-
peror at San Germano in 1230 could be but tempor-
ary. The opposition between their ideals of society
was fundamental; and the several endeavours of
each to attain nearer to what he regarded as the
noblest goal of his ambition were so many blows at
the other. The Pope openly proclaimed the supremacy
of the ecclesiastical power over the civil ; the Em-
peror, though he only dared to say that the ecclesi-
astical power and the civil power should act together,
desired in his heart to put the Church under his
heel. Everywhere the two were in opposition. In
The Kingdom the Pope regarded the clergy as pri-
marily his subjects ; in the papal provinces of central
Italy Frederick still regarded himself as sovereign.
The Pope was resolved to uphold the independence
of the Lombard cities; Frederick was resolved to
reduce them to obedience. Everywhere contrary in-
terests were straining to break the peace ; and sooner
or later it was sure to give way. For the moment,
however, these destructive forces were counteracted ;

246 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Pope Gregory desired passionately to extend Christ-
ian rule in the Holy Land and he knew that this
could only be accomplished with the Emperor's help,
and he also had need of that help at home against
the troublesome Romans ; and Frederick, on his part,
was most anxious to keep the Pope neutral while he
adjusted his relations with the Lombards.

The Lombard question was simply this : the Lom-
bards desired to stay as they were, whereas Frederick
found the actual situation intolerable. The Lombard
League cut the Empire in two ; it closed the passes
over the Alps to imperial troops coming from Ger-
many ; it tried to tyrannize over loyal cities ; it en-
abled the Pope to maintain a haughty front against
imperial rights. For the members of the League to
call themselves loyal subjects seemed to Frederick
both fanciful and impudent. They, on their side,
declared that the rights they enjoyed had been sol-
emnly confirmed by the Treaty of Constance, and
that the seeming acts of disloyalty were but the pre-
cautions of ordinary prudence to safeguard those
rights in the face of obvious danger. The League,
however, sincerely desired to avoid war; nor did
Frederick, who had great confidence in his own
power of overreaching his opponents, intend to re-
sort to hostilities until he had exhausted the resources
of ingenuity. His plans had a double object in view,
first, to detach by threats or bribes some members of
the League, and secondly, to secure to himself the
moral support of public opinion. Perhaps the clear-
est evidence of Frederick's shrewdness is the court
that he paid to public opinion. He was always busy

THE NOBLES OF THE NORTH 247

writing to princes and potentates, in order both to put
his side of a quarrel before them and to flatter them
by showing that he wished for their good opinion.

This ambition of Frederick's to reunite the sev-
ered members of the Empire, like a call to battle,
roused all the north of Italy into active partisanship
for one side or the other. As a rule, the feudal no-
bles were for the Empire and most cities for the
League and the Church. But except in the case of a
few cities on both sides, it is not safe to assume with
either commune or baron that partisan loyalty re-
mains unchanged from one year to the next. The
cities of Cremona, Pavia, Reggio, and Modena were
devoted to the Emperor ; Romagna, except Faenza,
was strongly imperial ; so was the city of Ferrara
under Salinguerra, but otherwise the cities of the
north were almost all against him. In the northwest
of Italy the feudal nobles, such as the Counts of
Savoy or the Marquises of Montferrat were some-
times on the Emperor's side and sometimes not. In
the northeast, in the March of Treviso, what is now
the province of Yeneto, the political parties were
fiercely divided. There the cities were not as power-
ful as they were in Lombardy. The country was
much less fertile than the valley of the Po, and
the mountainous character of a great part of it hin-
dered trade and furnished admirable points of vant-
age for the castles of the nobility. Of these nobles
three or four were preeminent. Ambitious to enlarge
their domains, they quarrelled with one another, and,
according as envy, jealousy, or interest directed, took
sides with the Empire or the Church. These feudal

248 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

nobles play dramatic parts on the stage of history
and deserve to have their lineage and their exploits
separately heralded.

The most distinguished family was the world-
renowned House of Este. Some hundred years earl-
ier one member of the family had emigrated to
Germany, and from him descend the Dukes of
Brunswick and the royal family of England. His
brother, the "magnificent Marquis Fulke," remained
in Italy, and from him descended the Italian branch,
destined to become lords of Ferrara, Reggio, and
Modena. The castle of Este lay at the southern foot
of the Euganean Hills, some fifteen miles southwest
of Padua, and the family possessed estates in all the
country roundabout. Marquis Azzo VI (1170-1212),
"a nobleman full of wisdom, who found grace with
God and man," steered with singular dexterity
through the troubled times of Innocent III and
stood well with both the Empire and the Papacy.
He was high-spirited, astute, and very ambitious;
but history tells little about him. The chronicler of
the House of Este gathered what records he could —
" so that posterity reading them shall be taught what
to choose and what to avoid for the present and the
future, and since everybody knows that 'by concord
little things grow great and by discord even the
greatest things fall away/ it is obvious that concord
is to be chosen with all one's might and discord
avoided." Unfortunately there was no vestige of
concord for him to chronicle, and he has left but
scanty accounts of the superabundant discord. There
were raids and forays to and fro in the March of

THE NOBLES OF THE NORTH 249

Treviso; Verona and Ferrara were lost and won;
castles and farmhouses were captured and burned.
Nevertheless, out of the misty records rises an image
of Azzo VI, a gay and gallant figure of a mediaeval
noble, a grand seigneur, " handsome in person, hand-
somer in feats of arms," who did his duty as he saw
it to the honour of his house and of his order, the
worthy scion of an illustrious race. Once he and his
friend, the Count of San Bonifazio (father of Cunizza's
husband), fought Ezzelino II and the Montagues in
the meadow just beyond the Roman Arena in Verona :
" Knight charges knight, foot soldiers fight hand to
hand, enemy grapples with enemy, till at last, after
knight and horse had shed their blood, after many
had been struck down and some killed, the Marquis
stood victor in the field. Towers and strongholds
throughout the city surrendered ; and Ezzelino II
was taken prisoner. The Marquis treated him with
courtly consideration, bade the lords and ladies and
all the quality of Verona do him honour, and then
sent him with an escort of knights to Bassano, where
he lived ; and there in return the lords and ladies of
the town showed great hospitality to Azzo's knights.
Ha ! Deus ! in those days there was war, good war
(if I may call it so). If a man bravely fighting his
enemy was made prisoner, he was not put to death,
or sent to prison, or condemned to horrible mutila-
tion ; on the contrary, he was sent away in honour
whither he wished to go." But then, as so often
through the centuries, the brave days of old gave
way to meaner modern times.

A year or two after the capture of Verona, Azzo

250 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

drove Salinguerra from Ferrara, and then, at the
height of fortune, died, followed to the grave a few
days later by his friend and companion in arms, San
Bonifazio : " Glorious princes of the earth, since in
life they loved one another greatly, so in death they
were not divided." Azzo left two sons. The elder
soon died, and the younger, Azzo VII (1205-1264)
succeeded to the family honours and estates. This
marquis played a notable part as captain of the Guelf
party in the northeast, and maintained with varying
fortune the cause of the League and of the Church
against the Ghibellines and the House of the Ez-
zelini. The most successful of his military operations
was the final recapture of Ferrara from old Salin-
guerra. But the capture does not redound to the
honour of the Marquis Azzo, or of the Doge of Ven-
ice, his ally, or of the Apostolic legate who fought
at his side, or of the Bishop of Ferrara, to whose
boldness and sagacity the capture was in great meas-
ure due. After a four months' siege they offered
the doughty old Ghibelline terms, which he, in spite
of his craft, accepted ; but when they had got him
in their power, they clapped him into prison and
kept him there till he died. In their defence it must
be said that a dozen years before Salinguerra had
captured Richard of San Bonifazio by a similar trick.
Trickery was one of the weapons in the game of war.
From that day for more than three hundred and
fifty years the city of Ferrara belonged to the House
of Este, until, crowned with the glory of Ariosto
and Tasso, the last duke of the main line of this
illustrious family died childless.

THE NOBLES OF THE NORTH 251

The other great family of the March of Treviso
was that of the Ezzelini, hereditary rivals of the
House of Este. Their castle of Romano was at the
foot of the outlying Alps midway between Feltre
and Bassano (Par. ix, 25-30) : —

In quella parte della terra prava

Italica, che siede tra Rialto

e le fontane di Brenta e di Piava,
si leva un colle, e non surge molt' alto,

la donde scese gia una facella,

che f ece alia contrada un grande assalto.

In that part of the wicked land

Of Italy, that lies between Rialto
And the springs of Brenta and Piave,

Up rears a hill, but no great height doth reach,
From thence came down a firebrand
That to the country round gave great offence.

The family traits were courage and craft; all its
members were ready at any time to lay hold of any
means to increase their power.

The family probably came down from Germany
in the train of some Emperor. Ezzelino I, the Stam-
merer, the grandfather of Ezzelino III, Frederick's
lieutenant, was a man of unusually strong character.
He was a partisan of the Lombard League against
Frederick Barbarossa. Cut off from any hope of pro-
viding for his family by imperial favour, Ezzelino I
cast about to better his son's fortunes by marriage.
The first wife chosen for Ezzelino II was a daughter
of the Marquis Azzo VI ; she died childless. The
second, a bold, reckless, amorous, much-marrying
woman was divorced; and the son was again single

252 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

when his father heard, through a channel that might
have deterred a less resolute man, of a most eligible
match. A young lady of the March, Donna Cicilia,
at the age of fourteen was left an orphan and a great
heiress. The Stammerer's daughter, the Countess of
Sampiero, who had her share of the family zeal for ac-
quisition, was quick to hear of this chance and quick
to act. She promised Donna Cicilia's guardian fifty
gold pounds to arrange a marriage between her son,
the young Count of Sampiero and the heiress. But
before the wedding Sampiero senior consulted his
father-in-law as to the wisdom of the match. Old
Ezzelino, in the subtle way of which he was past-
master, fobbed off his son-in-law, sent privily to the
guardian, gave him a hundred pounds, and married
the girl to his own son, Ezzelino II. The Sampieri
were very angry, got possession of Cicilia, and took
a terrible revenge. Cicilia, no longer fit to be young
Ezzelino's wife, was divorced, and the young man
married a fourth time. The affair created a feud
between the families of Ezzelino and of Sampiero,,
and betrays the fact that the quarrels between the
nobles were often not over questions of large policy,
but about mere matters of personal hatred and jeal-
ousy. Ezzelino II lived to prosper ; but as life went
on he experienced a change of heart. He turned to
religious things. His enemies said that he became a
heretic. At any rate, he forsook the world, trans-
ferred his baronies to his sons, Ezzelino III da Ro-
mano and Alberic, and retired to a monastery. From
this monastic life he got the name, Ezzelino the
Monk.

THE NOBLES OF THE NORTH 253

Ezzelino III da Romano, whose name has become
a synonym for cruelty, was the lifelong rival of
Marquis Azzo VII. We have already made his ac-
quaintance as brother of Cunizza. Short, swarthy,
black-haired, Ezzelino III was a high-strung, resolute,
dare-devil of a man. In the beginning of his career he
sided with the Lombard League and was podesta
of Verona when that city barred the Brenner Pass
against Prince Henry: but in 1232 he turned his
coat and for nearly thirty years maintained the
Ghibelline cause with brilliant success against the
Church, the Lombard League, and Azzo d' Este.
Azzo, indeed, with his allies captured Ferrara; but
Ezzelino made himself master of Padua, Verona,
Vicenza, and almost all the March of Treviso. He
received the office of imperial lieutenant and married
the Emperor's bastard daughter, Selvaggia.

In his youth Ezzelino was regarded merely as a
brilliant and ambitious young Ghibelline leader; his
dreadful reputation belongs to later years and,
though firmly built on acts of savage cruelty, it is
indebted for the infernal glare that lights it up to
the dread with which he inspired his enemies. The
Guelf chroniclers cannot satiate themselves with
epithets: "limb of Satan," "son of iniquity," "worst
of men," "poisonous snake," "Antichrist," "basilisk
thirsting for blood"; and legend whispered that no
human father but a fiend from hell had begotten
him.

The change in Ezzelino's nature, or at least in his
reputation, seems to have taken place after the
capture of Padua. Once in possession he feared to

254 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

lose the city and sought to prop his dominion by
fear. This rich and prosperous town, though it had
joined the Lombard League, was divided against
itself, and its rulers were distraught in their counsels.
On the one hand, there was the bond with the
League ; on the other, the Emperor was dangerously
near, Vicenza had fallen, and the Imperialists were
full of energy and daring. The leaders of the Ghibel-
line faction, taking advantage of the general per-
plexity and confusion, intrigued with Ezzelino and
by specious representations and promises induced
the city to open her gates, as a loyal subject, to the
Emperor; some among them asserted with confidence
that Lord Ezzelino desired the good and honour of
Padua more than the fulfilment of all his other wishes.
"So, on the very next day, February 25th, 1237,
Count Gebhard and Ezzelino (the imperial envoys)
with their troops entered Padua peaceably. And
many people saw — and I [Rolandino, the historian
of these affairs] particularly saw it — that as Ezzelino
was going through the city gate, he pushed back
his iron helmet, and, leaning over from his palfrey
toward the gate, kissed it. ... Then the city was
handed over to Count Gebhard, who received it in
the name of the Emperor and in his stead. And
afterwards at the general assembly of the councils,
Lord Ezzelino made a speech and said — but nobody
understood the full significance of what he said —
that it was true that Padua had been given to Lord
Gebhard for the Emperor, but to the envoys of the
Emperor as well; and therefore whatever was done
or considered thereafter on behalf of the Commune

THE NOBLES OF THE NORTH 255

of Padua was of no value, unless it should be done
with the advice and consent of Lord Ezzelino."

Not for two years, however, did Ezzelino 's cruelty
show itself. Then some of the Guelf faction were
suspected of intrigues with the enemy. A knight
was arrested and executed in the courtyard without
trial. A little later another gentleman of rank and
consequence was executed; on the same day one of
the canons of Padua was burnt at the stake, and
eighteen burghers and villagers were hanged. Others
were imprisoned on vague surmises. One gentleman
was overheard saying to another : " We ought to take
arms and not permit the nobles and gentlemen of
Padua to be so cruelly, so vilely, put into prison."
Both were beheaded. Three others, bred to a life of
ease and luxury, were kept in jail several years, and
then the doors were barricaded and the poor wretches
left to cry in vain, " Bread ! Bread ! " After thirty
days their bodies, all skin and bones, black and hor-
rible, were taken out. Vanitatum vanitas ineffdbilis,
vita mortifera, mundus fallax ! The poor historian,
Rolandino, had fallen on evil days. Fond of study
and peace and of the Latin poets, — Horace, Ovid,
Lucan, — he naturally regarded the tyranny of
Ezzelino as the visible presence of Antichrist.

So matters went. When Lord Ezzelino shifted his
residence to Verona, he made his sister's son, Anse-
disius, podesta of Padua. Ansedisius remained in
power for nearly seven years, a nephew worthy of his
uncle. B ut as he was a man of pleasant manners, ready
with promises, the family traits did not show them-
selves at once ; moreover, even when living in Verona,

256 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Ezzelino, either by visits or by his litterce mortiferce,
death-dealing letters, kept control. On one occasion
a company of gentlemen was assembled in the large
hall of the podesta's house. On a perch was a sparrow-
hawk, and one of those present, a man of some read-
ing, litteratus, quoted one of ^Esop's fables: —

To repulse the attacks of a kite, the doves chose a hawk for

their king.
The king does more harm than the foe ; the doves begin raising

the question,

Whether it might not be well to endure the attacks of the kite,
Rather than die, one by one, without declaration of war.

Somebody liked the verses and asked for a copy ;
others spoke of them to people outside. The inci-
dent came to the ears of the Podesta, who "night
and day was cogitating how he could destroy the
people of Padua, for that was what he was charged
to do." All concerned were immediately arrested.
Soon afterwards Ezzelino came to Padua. On his
arrival the friends and relations of the gentlemen
arrested went in a body to his house, to ask that the
accused be let out on bail. They were waiting below,
when Ezzelino attended by his men-at-arms came
down in so great a fury that all but two fled incon-
tinently. These two, foolishly trusting in their inno-
cence, were arrested. Ezzelino hurried to the palace,
called out the guards, both knights and foot sol-
diers, and, haranguing all the company, charged
various persons of wealth and position with circulat-
ing these verses on purpose: "He was no hawk, he
said, that wished to devour the doves, but the father
of a family who intended to clean out his house,

THE NOBLES OF THE NORTH 257

cast out the scorpions, sweep out the toads, and
bruise the heads of the snakes." This house-cleaning
he carried out thoroughly ; some of the persons con-
cerned in the affair of ^Esop's fable were beheaded
in the public square, others, both men and women,
fettered and thrown into the deepest dungeon.

As time went on, Ezzelino's cruelty became still
more barbarous. And yet there is something in his
deviltry that lifts him high above the common run
of cruel men of his time (for all that progeny of
dragon's teeth was cruel), and gives him the mag-
nanimous quality that we attribute to Satan at his
best. Ezzelino is like Shakespeare's Richard III, but
of a purer clay : —

Because I cannot flatter and speak fair,
Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive and cog,
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,
I must be held a rancorous enemy.
Cannot a plain man live and think no harm ?

Rolandino ascribes to him a sentiment, written
not to an enemy or to be read by the world, but in
a letter to crafty Salinguerra, his brother-in-law:
" There are two things out of all others in this life
with which men are bound chiefly to concern them-
selves, to wit, to keep faith with friends and live
with honour." And this same terrible tyrant, at the
very time of the affair of ^Esop's fable, "had set his
heart on love and on a beautiful young lady, if it is
possible to believe that love and extremes t cruelty
can exist in one heart." On betrothal he pledged
her his service and his honour, and after his mar-
riage (so it was said by some) he entertained a

258 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

dream, when once he should become sole master in
the March, to pass his life in love and bliss in the
palace that he was building in Padua at the head of
the Millers' Bridge. Pope Alexander IV thought it
by no means impossible to transform him from a
membrum diaboli into zjilius Dei.

Another of the principal nobles of the March was
Count Riccardo di San Bonifazio, head of the
Church party in Verona, the patron of Sordello,
and for a brief time husband of Ezzelino's celebrated
sister, Cunizza. Between them these bold barons
kept the March in great turmoil. They come clatter-
ing down the decades of the century with their
knights, their men-at-arms, and their foot soldiers,
like the heroes of the Iliad, rejoicing in battle,
fighting one another under the push of primitive
passions, — covetousness, revenge, jealousy, — or, at
times, as it seems, merely in order to drive dull care
away. They strove to maintain the feudal system
against the rising tide of modern civilization, and
though they ranged themselves for the Empire or
for the communes, they really embodied a theory
of what is desirable in a body politic remote from
either of the theories represented by those two ad-
versaries. They remained true to feudal confusion,
to the loose system of mutual ties existing between
inferiors and superiors all along the scale from
slave to emperor. That system had no place for
the economical development of industry, it took no
account of manufacture or of trade; it was based on
agriculture. It had the vaguest and most wayward
idea of law and order. But, if on the economic side

THE NOBLES OF THE NORTH 259

of things the feudal system was all weakness, on the
side of sentiment it had great strength. It repre-
sented the recent past, the past within the memory
of living men, and therein lay its power, for the
recent past is the home of sentiment. Peasants, from
their boyhood up, had lived within a bow-shot of
the great castle, they had looked upon it as part of
the eternal order, they had been bred upon stories
of the old lord, and of the young lord when a mad-
cap boy; they had seen the pennants fly and the
lances glitter as the men-at-arms rode away on a
foray, they had shared the triumph of victory and
the pinch of defeat. Their fathers, and their fathers'
fathers, had been loyal to the master; and for them
to desert that allegiance and adopt the communal
motto of service of self was a kind of detestable
free- thinking, rank lay atheism. And so the mag-
nificent Marquis of Este and the terrible Lord of
Romano inspired their followers with a doglike and
not ignoble fidelity.

The communes represented economic growth, the
union of men for the sake of greater productiv-
ity, the expansion of relations between guilds, be-
tween town and town, between country and country,
in short the cause of commerce; they were the crea-
tors of our modern world, the champions of the fu-
ture. If, judged by our standards, they accomplished
little, they at least were pioneers and swung their
axes to clear away the choking heritage of the past.
Their duty was to make a beginning, and this they
did ; Milan, Bologna, Piacenza, and Brescia, the only
cities that remained steadfast in the darkest days,

260 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

are the real heroes of the struggle with the Empire.
The communes may not have for us the picturesque
charm of the bold barons, but they presented an
ideal to the men of their time ; they did not appeal
to memory and the past, but they appealed to self-
interest and the improvement of humanity.

The Empire represented a third ideal, as high as
the other two, or, indeed, higher still. It dreamed of
universal peace and order, of law and even-handed
justice, of violence chained and things of the mind
set free to bourgeon and to blow. This vision of le-
gitimate sovereignty gilding the sullen earth, dis-
pelling the clouds of force, fraud, and fear, lights
up with perhaps an undeserved illumination the
Empire as it hastens to its setting. The Empire cer-
tainly regarded itself as the heir to the divinely con-
stituted empire of ancient Rome, its Emperors as the
successors to Trajan and Augustus, and in its extraor-
dinary self-deception believed that it could blazon
upon its banner the Pax Romana once more restored
to a troubled world. In short, the struggle between
the Empire, the communes, and the feudal nobles
was a struggle between ideals fighting among them-
selves to prove which of the three was most in ac-
cordance with the needs of men.

Frederick's mind was possessed by this ideal of
legitimate sovereignty ; and he realized to the full the
advantage that it afforded him in his contest with
the undutiful province ; his policy, therefore, was to
act strictly within his rights and to crowd the Lom-
bards more and more^ into a position of open rebel-
lion. His first step, as before, was to summon a diet,

THE NOBLES OF THE NORTH 261

to be held this time at Eavenna. The Pope, eager
for a new crusade, forbade the League to oppose it.
The Lombards, as before, drew close together and a
second time prevented the Emperor's son and his
troops from crossing the Alps. The diet was a fail-
ure. A second time the controversy was left to the
Roman Curia ; a second time the Roman Curia laid
the blame on the Lombards and adjudged that they
should equip and maintain several hundred knights
for the proposed crusade. Frederick, remember-
ing the outcome of the former award, was highly
incensed ; and the case was reopened. It is probable
that Frederick was not seeking a peaceful issue, but
rather that he hoped to start a rift between the Pope
and the Lombards, and wished to take before the
world the position of a pacific sovereign who has
exhausted all the resources of diplomacy and arbi-
tration before he draws the sword.

Matters hung on. The Emperor was obliged to
go to Germany to suppress a rebellion raised by his
eldest son, Prince Henry ; and he stayed to marry
Isabella of England, sister to King Henry III, for
he was now a widower for the second time. But Ez-
zelino, realizing that the situation in north Italy
was intolerable, urged the Emperor to come back.
It was high time ; the Church had dropped her role
as peacemaker and war was afoot. Fortune favoured
the Empire. Frederick, by a rapid march, surprised
and captured Vicenza ; Ezzelino got possession of
Padua and Treviso; Mantua surrendered ; Azzo of
Este came in to make his peace. And, at last, after
mano3uvring for some time in vain, Frederick sue-

262 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

ceeded in bringing on a general engagement in the
open field. At Corte Nuova, November 27, 1237, the
army of the League was cut to pieces, the carroccio
of Milan captured, and ten thousand men killed or
taken prisoners.

The Emperor was exultant. Pier della Vigna, who
shared his master's taste for Sicilian rhetoric, pub-
lished the news abroad : " Let the might of the Ro-
man Empire be lifted up, let the whole world rejoice
at the victory of the great King. Let the rebel Lom-
bard League blush for shame, let the insurgent mad-
ness be confounded, let all our enemies tremble
before this great slaughter. More than all others let
hapless Milan groan and grieve, let her shed bitter
tears at the heaps of her slain, at the number of her
captive citizens. Let her now learn obedience to the
lord of the world; for at last God, the just judge,
has looked down upon the rights of the Empire, and
has overthrown the pride of the Lombard rebels. In
a single day woe-stricken Milan with her confeder-
ates has lost the flower of her soldiers and her citi-
zens, her carroccio and her podesta. Every man on
our side killed or made prisoner whom he would. On
that day Caesar showed himself more valiant than all
his soldiers and with his own hand smote the casques
of the enemy. Then the Germans dyed their swords
in red blood; then the loyal knights of Apulia
fought gloriously by the side of their king ; then
the gallant men of Pavia revenged themselves on
the soldiers of Milan ; then faithful Cremona with
her allies sated their battle-axes in blood; then the
Saracens emptied their quivers . . ." Indeed, it was a

THE NOBLES OF THE NOKTH 263

great victory. The allies of the League melted away.
Only Milan, Bologna, Piacenza, and Brescia stood
firm ; and even Milan offered terms, but Frederick
haughtily demanded unconditional surrender.

Frederick's power was higher than ever before,
and he gave free rein to ambition and revenge ; he
intrigued again with his partisans in Rome, and
married his son Enzio to Adelasia, the heiress of the
northern half of Sardinia, and, although the Papacy
claimed Sardinia as a papal province, dubbed him
king. But the Emperor's success and his high-aspir-
ing ambition roused his enemies to new efforts.
Genoa and Venice made common cause with the
League. The papal legate, Gregory of Montelungo,
whose ecclesiastical powers were not diminished by
his military rank as general of the allied army in
Lombardy, solemnly excommunicated the Emperor.
Both sides published their grievances to the princes
of Europe. Frederick excused himself and inveighed
against the Roman Curia. Gregory wrote : " There
has arisen out of the sea a Beast full of the words o£
blasphemy," and repeated all his old charges against
the Emperor.

The rights and wrongs of the quarrel were dis-
cussed from Sicily to Scotland ; wherever there was
a cathedral or parish church, wherever there was a
monastery, men took sides. If Frederick had been
less of a Sicilian, if he had had more prudence or
less bad temper, he might, by the sheer force of
public opinion, which was beginning to turn in his
favour, have forced the Church to abandon its un-
christian enmity to him. But the defects of Fred-

264 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

crick's character told heavily against him, and now
that his faithful friend Hermann von Salza was dead,
he had no independent counsellors about him to ad-
vise him honestly. Men like Pier della Vigna buttered
their own bread by flattering him. Unguided, except
by his own passion, the Emperor made two great mis-
takes. The first was to march down through Peter's
Patrimony and threaten Rome. He made no assault
upon the city, either because he knew that he could
not storm the Aurelian walls, or because he only
meant to frighten the Pope ; but the memory of this
menacing attitude was not without its influence on
the conduct of Gregory's successor. The second mis-
take was still more grave.

The Roman Curia wished to consolidate the forces
of the Church in the face of the enemy. They were
well aware that their cause needed bolstering. Even
in the Lateran Palace the Emperor had partisans ;
Cardinal Colonna was justly suspected of being an
Imperialist at h'eart. The spectacle of papal legates
leading armies in the field, of friars swarming every-
where, not to spread the gospel but to disseminate
stories against Frederick, was not edifying ; the mem-
ory of St. Francis was still too fresh to permit such
sights to go uncriticised. In England oppressive ec-
clesiastical taxation was causing daily complaints.
In France the nobles resented papal interference in
what they deemed their national affairs ; the young
king, Louis IX, whose piety no man could question,
was thoroughly out of sympathy with the papal pol-
icy. In Italy discontent was not confined to the
Ghibelline party ; even among the Franciscans there

THE NOBLES OF THE NOKTH 265

were friars of imperial leanings. Lampoons spread
from mouth to mouth ; Pope, priests, and monks were
jeered at and ridiculed.

To support their cause and beat down opposition,
the Papal Curia made their strongest move ; Gregory
convoked an oacumenical council at Rome. The
Church Universal would be able to throw a cloak
of propriety over all the misbehaviour, true or false,
that had been charged; and at Rome, in the halls
and chambers of the Lateran Palace, at the source of
ecclesiastical promotion, the assembled clergy could
be counted on to confirm and ratify, or, if need be,
to excuse all that the Curia and its adherents had
done. The date was fixed for Easter, 1241. Fred-
erick was no fool; he foresaw how greatly such a
council could strengthen and give comfort to his
enemies. It might confirm the ban of excommuni-
cation laid on him by the legate ; it might even dare
to talk of deposing him. So he forestalled the pro-
ject. He gave notice that he could not permit the
council to be held, and therefore would give no safe-
conduct through his dominions. This was treading
on dangerous ground ; the civil power had no right
whatever to* interfere with matters purely eccle-
siastical, least of all to prevent the assembling of the
Christian Church Universal, for that was tantamount
to preventing Christendom from consulting the Holy
Spirit. Nevertheless, it was obvious that the purpose
of the council was primarily political, and had Fred-
erick contented himself with stopping the clergy on
their way to Rome and turning them back, he might
well have kept public sympathy on his side. Unf or-

266 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

tunately for him, his temper got the better of hia
prudence.

In spite of the Emperor's proclamation, the Ro-
man Curia persisted. The clergy from Germany and
Sicily were afraid to go, but some prelates from
England and Spain, and many from France started,
and as the route by land was barred by the Em-
peror's soldiers, they went to Genoa to take ship there
for Rome. Galleys of transport had been prepared,
and Genoese vessels of war were ready to escort
them. Meanwhile the imperial fleet had been ordered
to hold itself in readiness, and lay off Pisa on the
watch ; and when the Genoese ships sailed on their
way to the mouth of the Tiber, it put out, intercepted
them near the island of Monte Cristo, and won a
complete victory. Twenty-five Genoese ships were
taken or sunk, and four thousand men made pris-
oners. The Spanish prelates escaped, but those from
France and Lombardy were captured. Two cardi-
nals, three archbishops, the abbots of Citeaux,
Clairvaux, and Cluny, half a dozen bishops and
scores of clergy of less note, were among the pris-
oners. Their treatment was very severe, even cruel;
they were lodged in filthy prisons, they were given
bad food, and subjected to all kinds of indignity.

Frederick was exultant ; " God looks down from
on high," he cried, " and gives His judgment." But
he had gone too far. His ill-treatment of the pris-
oners roused general indignation. Christendom felt
that it was an outrage to punish innocent priests,
whose only fault had been to obey their superior ;
and the whole Church now took up the quarrel of

THE NOBLES OF THE NOKTH 267

the Pope with the Emperor as its quarrel. Poor old
Gregory was broken-hearted. He wrote a noble and
touching letter of sympathy to the prisoners, but
he could do nothing to help them ; indeed, he him-
self could not bear up under the blow; that summer
he died in sorrow and apprehension. The bark of
Peter was in stormy waters. The cardinals, reduced
to a handful, had no leader and no policy. Frederick
raided the countryside around Rome, and raged or
affected to rage at their inaction. They elected a
poor old man, a compromise candidate, who died in
a week or two, and then they could not agree at all.
After two years, frightened perhaps by the threats of
Frederick, or by hints at schism from France, and by
the universal complaints of a headless Church, they
elected Cardinal Sinibaldo dei Fieschi, Innocent IV.
The accession of a new pope offers a favourable
point to break off the political thread and to turn
for a little to other interests.

CHAPTER XIX

EARLY ART

When earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest ; and, faith, we shall need it.

KIPLING.

POLITICS have always flaunted themselves on the
pages of history. The chroniclers, like children
eager for tales of pirates and ogres, care for little
else ; they take popes, kings, and other great person-
ages at their own estimate, and pass by the rest of
the world, its happiness, its sufferings, its endeavour
to express itself, its pride of life, its strivings for
better things, as star-gazers disregard the ant-hills
at their feet. So, when we concern ourselves with
early stirrings in the art of painting or of mosaic,
we have almost nothing to guide us except ruined
remains. Random wayfarers strolling through the
thirteenth century are apt to think that in these
matters the chroniclers are right ; but on our more
methodical pilgrimage we must assume, upon one
ground or another, a justification for loitering and
looking a few minutes at the poor remains.

Early Italian art has for its admirers the charm
of the first crocuses in spring ; and for such admir-
ers all feeble beginnings are interesting. As others
might read anecdotes about the infancy of famous
men, how the dimpled and cooing Napoleon toddled

EARLY ART 269

from his mother to his nurse and back again, so they
look at the primitive pictures — despitef ully treated
by time, by careless generations and painstaking re-
storers — which still linger on the walls and ceilings
of old Italian churches. They are right. The poor
remains are well worth the descent into the crypt,
the halting conversation with the sacristan, and the
sad sense of old mortality laid upon us, for they
show how painters struggled, often apparently against
great odds, with the difficulties of representing the
third dimension by means of line and colour, and
with all the elementary problems of draughtsmanship.
This early art has a double aspect: in one it is
old, formal, fixed ; in the other it is infantile, with
all its lessons to be learned. It wears this double
aspect because it has proceeded from a great past
and advances forward to a great future ; and its two
aspects correspond to its two branches, mosaic and
painting. Both these arts are branches of decorative
art, but except for their common object of creating
pictures, their purposes are so different that they
must be regarded as quite distinct from one another.
Mosaic presents images, not as likenesses of objects
seen in nature, but as symbols of ideas. The Christ
of the Roman mosaics, for instance, is not a picture
of the Jesus of the New Testament, but a religious
symbol of power and majesty. In this art defect of
draughtsmanship (if it may be so called) is compara-
tively venial, for the artist is first concerned with
the ideas which he wishes to represent, and next
with symbols as matters of decorative value, as pleas-
ant or impressive arrangements of colour. On the

270 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

other hand, the chief purpose of the primitive paint-
ers is to tell a story ; they narrate legends of saints
to people who cannot read, and by a dramatic ap-
peal to the eye seek to stir the dull sentiments of
peasants more effectively than words could through
the ear. Painters painted both in tempera and in
fresco, but most of the Italian painting that has come
down to us is in the latter, and I shall speak of
painting, at least upon the walls of churches, as
synonymous with fresco.

The two arts, differing in purpose as much as in
material, served different functions, and were differ-
ently employed according to the will of the patron
and the space to be decorated. The great patron
was the Church ; and she was interested only in the-
ological ideas and scenes from the Bible or from lives
of saints. If a prelate wished to impress upon his
people some moral tale, or if he had wall space at his
command, he employed a painter; if he wished to
arouse sentiments of awe and grandeur, or if he had
the dome of a choir to decorate, he employed a mo-
saist. Each art has its special virtue. The merits of
mosaic are determined in great measure by its ma-
terials ; the little cubes of many-coloured glass ne-
cessitate rigidity of form and impose conventional
treatment, but they render possible a glorious splen-
dour of colour, so that though little apt for the ex-
pression of the artist's personality, they are admirable
for solemn decoration. The concave half dome in
the tribune of a basilica, being the roof that covers
and protects the altar, is the very home and shrine
of the mosaic art; it is no place for the artist's fancy,

EARLY ART 271

but rather an airy pulpit to set forth the sacred
dogmas of Christianity. And when mosaics are laid
over all the walls and ceilings of a church, as in St.
Mark's at Venice, their decorative beauty is unriv-
alled, except by the "storied windows richly dight"
of the Gothic cathedrals.

On the other hand, fresco is the embodiment of
liberty ; the quick movements of the brush follow
the momentary fancy of the painter, and the very
need of putting on the colours before the plaster
dries rouses him to his utmost grace, delicacy, and
naturalness. As mosaic is primarily an ecclesiastical
art, which abases the individual before authority and
tradition, so fresco is primarily a personal art, and
ennobles the individual to the height of full personal
freedom. During the centuries that preceded the in-
tellectual stirrings of the thirteenth century, the
mosaic art was much the more important of the two,
and has left beyond comparison the more interesting
monuments. In fact, painting during those centuries
was so poor and so much under the influence of
mosaic that it was as much a matter of conventional
decoration as the mosaic art itself, and very little
superior as a story-telling art; so it will not be
necessary to keep the two apart in the few words
I have to say of their history prior to the thirteenth
century.

The great school of European art in the Middle
Ages, the Christian art par excellence, is the Byzan-
tine school. Compounded of qualities and influences,
part Greek, part Oriental, this school took definite
complexion in the time of Justinian (527-565). It

272 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

was not the product of a nation but of an empire.
Various provinces, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and
Egypt, themselves affected by Persia, wove as it were
their several contributory strands into one fabric ;
and Constantinople, the imperial capital, once Byzan-
tium, conferred her ancient name upon the com-
posite whole. The name is just, for Constantinople
was the great meeting-place for Eastern peoples, their
commerce, their ideas, their arts. From the time of
Justinian to the thirteenth century Constantinople
was the most civilized city of the Christian world ;
by her commerce, her situation, and her tradition
she exerted great influence over Europe. Her pro-
sperity was unstable ; she had her ups and downs.
And Byzantine art, dependent upon political pro-
sperity, had its corresponding seasons, fat and lean ;
under Justinian it enjoyed one prosperous period
and then underwent a long depression, till in the
ninth century, inspired by the vigorous rule of the
Macedonian dynasty, it rose to its second golden age.
As every healthy art must do, this art exhibited dif-
ferent traits in different countries, but everywhere it
preserved a common character.

During the Middle Ages, Byzantine art exercised
its chief influence in Italy in those provinces that
belonged to the Eastern Empire, and an important
influence in other provinces ; but besides the Byzan-
tine school there was also an indigenous school, of
which the principal remains are in and near Rome.
This Roman school was based on classical art, and
followed in a halting and degenerate manner the
models and traditions of ancient Rome. Naturally

EARLY ART 273

it kept even pace with the course of Roman civiliza-
tion, and went down, down, in the dim centuries
and mounted again in the twelfth. This school
maintained a loyalty, stronger in will than in deed,
to the antique, and on the whole bore itself in a
more friendly manner than the Byzantine school
towards individuality and liberty ; although, to tell
the truth, the uninstructed observer finds little trace
of individuality or liberty in either school.

Outside of Rome, there were scattered about, in
various places, local artists who painted according to
local traditions ; perhaps they were employed because
there was no Byzantine artist to be had, or because
the spot was remote from Byzantine influence, or
from local pride, or maybe merely for convenience'
sake. None of these local schools or traditions were
of much consequence. Rome is the only place where
art had a continous history from classic times ; and
in Rome both Byzantine and native schools main-
tained themselves side by side through the centuries.
But while the Roman school persisted steadily, though
feebly, the Byzantine school rose and fell according
as it did or did not receive accessions of strength
from Greece.

For the most part the influence of Byzantine art
in Italy was in close dependence on Byzantine
dominion and Byzantine trade. Prior to the Norman
conquest in the eleventh century, southern Italy was
a province of the Eastern Empire ; and after political
dominion had ended, trade continued to maintain
close relations between Constantinople and the coast
cities of Italy and Sicily. In consequence of politi-

274 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

cal and commercial relations Byzantine art reigned
supreme at Ravenna, Venice, Palermo, and Cef alu ;
and from those cities its influence spread roundabout.
Even inland towns accepted it;* for instance, the
mosaics in the tribune of Sant' Ambrogio at Milan
are Byzantine. Ecclesiastical bonds also united Greece
and southern Italy ; in Apulia and Calabria many
Greek monks and many of the country-folk practised
Greek rites, and in decorating their hermitages, ora-
tories, and churches, remained true to Byzantine
art.

This art, as it appears in Italy, was essentially a
religious art, and under the control of the clergy.
Religion, that is, the religion of public worship, was
ecclesiastical and formal ; dogmas, ritual, liturgy were
definitely formulated ; and art, following religion
was stiff, monotonous, symbolic. Artists abandoned
the noble attitudes and large simplicity of antiquity ;
they made their figures rigid, absurdly long, insip-
idly symmetrical ; they surcharged drapery with ori-
ental luxury and ornament. All attempts to turn
towards nature were overcome by the weight of au-
thority. The Church sanctioned definite ways of re-
presenting sacred personages and scenes ; and artists
did as they were bidden. Religious pictures became
more and more sacred from familiarity. Tradition
dominated the ateliers. Christ, the Virgin, saints,
elders, the great biblical and legendary episodes, be-
came stereotyped, each new picture was a copy of
the last. In this way individuality was sacrificed, and
art inevitably degenerated; nevertheless it would be
highly unjust to think that Byzantine art cast a

EARLY ART 275

blight. On the contrary, remote as it appears from
nature, indifferent as it appears to life, it came as a
beneficent stimulant to Roman art. It had its own
grand manner, its own monumental character, and
has left works of art in Italy, that nothing produced
by the native art of Italy during those centuries can
pretend to rival.

Byzantine art came to the sea-coast towns by rea-
son of political or commercial relations, but to Rome
through a variety of shifting channels. In early times
its- influence was transmitted by Ravenna, a half
oriental city; at a later period by a long succession
of Greek and Syrian popes ; and, afterwards, by im-
migrant bands of Greek monks or Greek artists, who
fled before the iconoclastic uprising in the Eastern
Empire. Works of Eastern art — carvings in ivory,
vessels of gold and silver, miniatures painted in
missals — made many proselytes. But of the various
means by which Byzantine influence made its way
to Rome, one deserves special mention. High on
a hill, midway between Rome and Naples, stands
the great Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino.
Here, among other crafts, painting took a firm foot-
hold. Benedictine monks acquired a local reputation
for their pictorial skill. At first, perhaps in conse-
quence of the close ecclesiastical relations between
the Order and Rome, their art was more akin to Ro-
man art than to the Byzantine ; but in the year 1066
Abbot Desiderius, afterwards Pope Victor III, who
had rebuilt the abbey and wished to decorate it in a
manner worthy of the greatness of the Order, sent
to Constantinople to get Greek artists. He really had

276 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

no choice, for the art of mosaic had utterly died out
in Rome two hundred years before. Greek artists
came to Monte Cassino, and brought with them the
Byzantine art of mosaic both in enamel and in marble,
and taught it to Italian workmen. In this way a
Benedictine school, part Byzantine, part Italian, was
founded, which followed the manner of the Greeks
in the selection of their materials and in their methods
of applying those materials in mosaics both of en-
amel and marble, but in design and composition in-
clined to the classical Roman fashion.

The records of these successive waves of Byzan-
tine influence are still to be traced in the mosaics
and paintings of Rome. In Sant' Agnese fuori le
mura, in the catacombs, in Sancta Maria Antiqua (the
church recently unearthed at the foot of the Pala-
tine Hill), in San Saba, Santa Prassede, and in various
famous Roman churches, down to the very end of
the thirteenth century, we find the impress of the
Byzantine style. On the other hand, although the
classic Roman tradition grew very faint in the sixth
century, although the art of mosaic perished utterly,
the Roman school of fresco-painting maintained it-
self throughout this long period ; nevertheless, to tell
the truth, it produced little of consequence. In the
lower church of San Clemente it lifts its languid head
to tell a tale of miracles, but the interest in these
frescoes is purely historical.

In Italy, therefore, during the long centuries
since the fall of the ancient world, there had been
two schools, in one of which a set of rules and tra-
ditions, derived directly from Greece and the East,

EARLY ART 277

prevailed, and in the other a set of practices and
traditions that traced their descent from the art of
ancient Rome. But we must not imagine that the
distinction between the two schools is readily per-
ceived by the uninitiated ; even the critics disagree as
to their boundary lines, and argue with great spirit
over attitudes, dresses, ornaments, and technique,
and draw boldly divergent inferences from damaged
frescoes and mutilated mosaics.

Such was the general condition of decorative art
when the thirteenth century opens. The prospect of
freedom, of personal expression, of a return to the
antique, of learning from nature, seems dark in-
deed. Roman art clings valiantly, but very feebly,
to antique tradition, and accomplishes little ; while
Byzantine art blazes in formal splendour at Venice
and Palermo. Yet the hope of the future lies in
Rome.

CHAPTER XX

PAINTING AND MOSAIC (1200-1250)

Rome disappoints me much ; I hardly as yet understand, but
Rubbishy seems the word that most exactly would suit it.

A. H. CLOUGH.

WITH the accession of Innocent III the Papacy
was approaching its highest point of power and
glory. Innocent's purpose was to turn Rome from
an independent commune into a papal city; both as
sovereign and as bishop he cherished an ambition to
make the ecclesiastical capital worthy of its position
as head of the Christian world, and so he began by
adorning the two great basilicas that commemorated
the two great fathers of Christian Rome. He deco-
rated the tribune of St. Peter's with mosaics, and
appropriated a large sum for the decoration of St.
Paul's without the walls.

The old basilica of St. Peter's was entirely pulled
down in the sixteenth century to make way for the
great Renaissance basilica, and its mosaics are gone ;
but those set in the tribune of St. Paul's out-
side the walls, though they have been subject to
many catastrophies, still remain in place. Innocent
was too busy with the political affairs of Christendom
to do much more than make a beginning; but his
successor, Honorius III, following in Innocent's
mighty footsteps as best he could, continued the

PAINTING AND MOSAIC 279

work of embellishing the ecclesiastical capital. Ho-
norius was confronted by the same difficulty that
confronted Abbot Desiderius at Monte Cassino in
1066; there were no competent Roman mosaists.
Honorius could not turn to Constantinople, because
the recent capture and sack of the city by the cru-
saders had dealt a ruinous blow to the artists
gathered there; but Venice, the ungrateful daugh-
ter and triumphant rival of Constantinople, had
availed herself of the conquest to lay hands on artis-
tic spoils, and had gathered together a community
of Greek artists and artisans round the church of
St. Mark's. Honorius therefore applied to Venice
for Greek masters in mosaic. His letter to the Doge
is still preserved : —

"January 23, 1218.

"Thanking your Nobility for the master whom
you sent us to do the mosaics in the Church of St.
Paul's we ask your Devout Signory, — since the
work is of such great magnitude that it could not
be completed by him within a long space of time, —
to take measures to send to us two other men skilled
in the same art; we shall be most indebted to you for
your liberality and you will gain the most desirable
protection of the glorious Apostle."

Probably Innocent had had to make a similar re-
quest for workmen to execute the mosaics in the
basilica of St. Peter's ; since, had there been Roman
workmen competent for so important a work, there
would surely have been artists left sufficiently trained
to do the mosaics in St. Paul's. The picture in the

280 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

tribune of St. Paul's is an old subject. Christ sits
enthroned in the centre with Peter and Paul, An-
drew and Luke to right and left ; and underneath
these great figures is a row of apostles, angels, and
evangelists. The mosaics are skilfully put together
and speak well for the workmanship of the Venetian
school, but the figures are not attractive, and the
whole work is Byzantine in the unflattering sense
of the word.

Except for these mosaics in St. Paul's, there is
very little pictorial art in Rome in this half -century.
Honorius built the new nave to the church of San
Lorenzo, and decorated it both with frescoes and
mosaics, but time and the restorer have left little
of thirteenth-century art. The only other pictures
of the first half of the century at Rome are in the
chapel of San Silvestro, just outside the deserted
church of the Quattro Coronati. They are frescoes
that represent the story of St. Silvester and the
Emperor Constantine, and also the familiar scene of
Christ enthroned between the Virgin and St. John
the Baptist ; but they tell more plainly still the story
of neglect and disrepute into which the painter's art
had fallen during the struggles between the Papacy
and Frederick II. They are awkward and feeble in
the unpleasing Byzantine manner ; in fact they are
no better than the paintings in San Clemente's lower
church, two or three hundred years earlier, which
if boyish have at least some elements of independ-
ence and freedom. Indeed, the survey of pictorial
art in Rome in this first half -century is depressing.
It is necessary to go about twenty-five miles east-

PAINTING AND MOSAIC 281

ward, up in the outlying ranges of the Apennines,
to catch a first faint tinge of dawn.

Here, near the town of Subiaco, the brawling
Anio runs fast between high melancholy hills on its
way towards the Tiber. The steep slopes, the outlines
of successive mountains, rising in higher ranges, the
stern moulding of the land, the noble gloom of the
scene, awaken thoughts that wander far from daily
cares and trivial happenings; and when the flowers
of spring carpet the hills, when white clouds drift
across the bright blue sky and sunshine flickers on
the glancing ilex leaves, the place is crowned with a
large and happy serenity. The gay nymphs of the
brawling river, the solemn spirits of the hills, and
the merry elves of the spring, sing an inspiring cho-
rus together. Here the Wordsworthian feels himself
at home, and with a special inward rapture declaims
his favourite passages. Long ago, poor, mad, poetic
Nero felt the charm and went to sojourn there.
Remains of his villa are still to be seen ; and the
lake that he made by damming the river was still
there in St. Francis's time. But the mad, pagan
Emperor is but dimly remembered at Subiaco; the
place owes its repute to the great Christian monk,
St. Benedict, who sought in this solitude refuge
from a corrupting world. Around his cave legends
clustered; thither pilgrims went; there veneration
grew; and on the sacred spot a monastery was built.
In the course of centuries the old buildings fell to
decay, or perhaps they were removed to make way
for new buildings better fitted to honour the saint
and to satisfy a newer taste. However that may be,

282 ITALY IN THE THIKTEENTH CENTURY

in the beginning of the thirteenth century the Bene-
dictine Order, encouraged by its powerful friends,
such as Cardinal Ugolino, built a series of chapels
and churches about the cave.

The rambling sanctuary seems to crawl up the
steep hillside on hands and knees, pausing at differ-
ent levels to set up altars and oratories. The chief
parts built at this time are the chapel of St. Greg-
ory and the lower church. Of the earlier buildings
nothing remains; and since then many changes have
taken place. In those days the path led up the hill
and the entrance was from below ; so that pilgrims
made their way to the lower church by the holy
stairs and through St. Gregory's chapel. The archi-
tecture reveals the early Gothic influences that
spread north from the Cistercian monasteries at Fos-
sanova and Casamari; whereas the upper church,
which was built a hundred years afterwards, shows
that influence triumphant.

In St. Gregory's chapel are the paintings that in-
terest us. There are a number painted about 1227
and 1228, soon after the chapel was completed; some
are in the chapel itself, others in the atrium that
leads to it, and others still painted on the wall at
the entrance to the holy stairs. Of these paintings
two are of especial importance because they are por-
traits of two great historical personages, St. Francis
and Cardinal Ugolino, afterwards Pope Gregory IX.
The portrait of St. Francis is probably the oldest
likeness of the saint that there is ; it has neither the
stigmata nor the aureole, therefore it was painted
almost certainly before he was canonized in 1228.

PAINTING AND MOSAIC 288

The face has something in common with the tradi-
tional type of masculine face, as formulated by the
Byzantine school and accepted by the Roman paint-
ers, but there are also signs in it of an effort to de-
pict a living man. The seriousness of the face may
be merely reminiscent of the solemn saints in By-
zantine mosaics; but it befits what we imagine to
have been the expression of Francis's features. Pro-
bably the painter thought it quite as important to
preserve the traditional type, the way a man ought
to look, as to present a picture of the way he actu-
ally looked. Francis stands erect in his frock, cowl
on head, and girded with his knotted cord. He holds
his right hand across his body with a sort of ex-
planatory gesture; and in his left hand he has a
scroll with his habitual greeting — "Pax huic domo."
The face is formal, the eyes are large, the nose is
long and thin, the ears are conspicuous and very
ugly, lips narrow; a slight beard fringes his chin
and a scanty moustache shades his mouth. It cannot
have been painted from life ; probably in those days
nobody expected to sit for a painter. A portrait was
a symbol, to indicate a man's rank and calling, and
his special title to be painted, and was not supposed
to counterfeit his personal peculiarities or the idio-
syncrasies of his features. This picture, however,
indicates the awakening of the idea of copying na-
ture, and furnishes the little ray of light that shines
with an undeserved lustre in that dim world of art.
As a portrait it has some points in common with the
portrait at San Francesco a Ripa in Rome, or that
in the church of San Francesco at Pescia, painted

284 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

by Bonaventura Berlingheri in 1235. An odd fact
about these three portraits is that the beard is fair,
whereas the biographer, Thomas of Celano, says that
Francis's beard was black.

This awakening to nature, hinted at by the Subi-
aco portrait of St. Francis, is a tribute to the saint
and to the sensitiveness of the painter. He must
have seen Francis and he must have known that he
was not like other holy men. Francis could not be
represented by a symbolic image ; frock, cowl, and
cord were enough to mark another monk, but not
him. Francis was felt to be a man apart, and por-
traiture only could fairly represent him. There is
nothing of the sort in the case of the portrait of
Cardinal Ugolino ; and yet Ugolino was a very emi-
nent personage, raised to a position second only to
the Pope by kinship, character, and services. In paint-
ing him the artist made no attempt to delineate
nature ; he contented himself with the traditional re-
presentation of a great prelate. Ugolino is painted in
the act of bending forward to consecrate the chapel.
His big eyes, hawk nose, fringing beard, formal
moustache, and well-defined ears repeat the features
of eminent prelates both in mosaic and fresco. He
is the ecclesiastical type, and much less eminent per-
sons dutifully look very much like him ; for instance,
the attendant who stands next to Ugolino and holds
his crozier, might be his younger brother. And yet
it is commonly believed that the two portraits, St.
Francis and Ugolino, were painted by the same hand.

South of Subiaco, a dozen miles across the moun-
tains as the crow flies, on the summit of one of the

PAINTING AND MOSAIC 285

outlying hills of the Sabine range, stands the little
town of Anagni ; a fief of the great House of Conti
to which Innocent III, Gregory IX, and Alexander IV
belonged. To the south the ViaLatina passes through
the plain on its way from Rome to Monte Cassino
and Capua. Within a girdle of massive walls the lit-
tle city lies along the summit of the hill ; and on the
very ridge the main street winds its way between two
serried files of palaces and houses from the west gate
of Ceres to Porta Santa Maria at the east. On the
height, some one hundred and fifty yards from
the Porta Santa Maria, stands the cathedral. This
stern, gray, Romanesque building, — half church,
half fortress, — which is arrogantly indifferent to
the gentler aspects of ecclesiastical architecture,
and plainly asserts that its bishop shall be more a
soldier than a priest, has even to-day a rude, impe-
rious dignity of its own. Hard by the church was the
palace, now no more. The town was very strong, and
therefore a favourite place of refuge for the Popes
when threatened by the Hohenstaufens or by the
citizens of Rome. Very famous scenes had been en-
acted in the cathedral; here Alexander III excom-
municated Frederick Barbarossa, and here Gregory IX
excommunicated Frederick II and began the great
strife that ended at last with the destruction of the
Hohenstaufens. Here also a still more famous scene
was destined to take place, when the lay spirit, in its
hatred against ecclesiastical domination, took a bitter
revenge on Boniface VIII.

The crypt of the cathedral is honoured by the
bones of St. Magnus, which were brought there

286 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

from the neighbouring town where the saint had
suffered a glorious martyrdom. As the church stands
on a sharp slope, the crypt is high and makes almost
a second church. The walls and ceilings of the crypt
are covered with frescoes. These frescoes represent
figures of saints, of Hippocrates and Galen, episodes
from the Old Testament, from Revelation, and the
story of the translations of the body of St. Magnus.
Here, as well as at Subiaco, the critics see two paint-
ers and more, as there well may have been, for the
crypt is large and the paintings are unequal. One of
these painters gets the personality assigned him by
the critics from the frescoes that depict the transla-
tions of the body of St. Magnus. This painter evi-
dently had great respect for Byzantine traditions, and
felt that there was something sacred in conventional
rigidity; perhaps he learned his art in some of the
Benedictine ateliers. The second, to whom are as-
cribed the figures of the saints, resembles in various
matters of style one of the artists who painted at Su-
biaco, and shows the freer hand of the Roman school.
Criticism of this kind comes from Italians chiefly and
has a patriotic bias ; it ascribes to Byzantine art a
rigid, monotonous manner, and to Roman art what-
ever is in a freer, bolder, more independent style,
and then assigns the painter to this school or that,
according as he inclines one way or the other. The
optimistic pilgrim, who is cheered by any touches of
freedom, whether or not they are properly attributed
to the native art of Italy rather than to the Byzan-
tine tradition, feels vaguely that these dim, dull,
smoked, restored frescoes in the crypt at Anagni,

PAINTING AND MOSAIC 287

are the best of their day, that in them are signs of a
coming change, encouraging indications that an old
chrysalis is falling away from a living spirit within.

The old nurse Tradition, and the headstrong child,
Genius, must quarrel sooner or later; but in the
earliest years the one lovingly tends the other, and
there is no need to take sides or painfully distin-
guish whether the nurse has or has not guided the
baby fingers here or there. Necessarily Italian art
was encumbered by the great Greek tradition that
had flowed down steadily, if, indeed, in a sadly dimin-
ished stream, from the greatest of all periods of art ;
and, necessarily, as Italy grew in wealth and civiliza-
tion while Constantinople waned, native artists be-
gan to assert their individuality, their Italian way
of seeing things and of depicting them. The two
systems jostled one another, as old tradition and
young life do. Crabbed age and youth cannot live
together, and youth is fated to triumph. Whether
or not the critics can assign these frescoes to the
old Greek school or to the younger Roman school,
Roman art was still, as it always had been, the pupil
of the elder.

It was altogether fitting that the infant genius of
Italian art should exhibit its first signs of awakening
life in the reign of the great Innocent. The causes
of the birth of genius are always obscure ; but here
at least we know that the cradle for the divine in-
fant was prepared by the Roman Curia. Innocent led
the way in St. Peter's and St. Paul's; Gregory IX,
as patron, encouraged by his sympathy, and doubt-
less with his purse, the work at Subiaco; and

288 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY '

either he or some member of the House of Conti
must have given the necessary impulse for the de-
coration in the crypt of the cathedral at Anagni.
Thus we get the first clear view of the fact, which
stands out so brilliantly at the end of the cen-
tury, that under a normal development Italian art
would have borne its brightest blossoms and its fair-
est fruit, during all its growth, in Roman territory
under the patronage of the Popes. The great ba-
silicas, doubly sacred now that Jerusalem was lost
to Christendom, the monasteries in and around the
city from Anagni and Subiaco to Assisi, offered
endless opportunities for the decorative arts; and
artists would have been drawn to Rome, as the centre,
from all Italy. But politics, always reckless of civil-
ization, wars with the Hohenstaufens, quarrels with
the Roman Commune, prevented the smooth progress
of art. Nevertheless, throughout the century and
until the fatal exile of the Papacy to Avignon, ec-
clesiastical Rome is the real staff and stay of young
Italian art.

CHAPTER XXI

THE DECORATIVE ARTS (1200-1250)

Tout passe. — L'art robuste
Seul a 1'e'ternite',

Le baste
Survit a la cite1,

Et la me*daille austere
Que trouve un laboureur

Sous terre
ReVele un eropereur.

TH^OPHILE QAUTIKB.

OTHER arts in the first half of our century were at
very much the same stage as painting ; if they appear
to have succeeded better, it is because the tasks they
attempted were simpler and demanded less skill.
They, too, depended upon the great patron, the
ecclesiastical order, and shared its fortunes.

In most little towns, where a cathedral or an im-
portant church was building, there were artisans, —
artists perhaps I should say, — either in the town
itself or in the neighbourhood, capable of building
and of decorating in a simple fashion. In one town
there would be a guild, in another a family, devoted
to the decorative art; but as the demand for such
work was far greater in Rome than elsewhere, so in
Rome we find far the most famous school of decor-
ators. These Roman artists, who proudly added to
their names the title " Magister et civis Romanus,"
worked not only in Rome, but also in the towns

290 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

near Rome. Sometimes they were architects and
built porches, cloisters, or the ornamental fronts of
churches ; at other times they were decorators in
marble or glass, and designed pulpits, reading-
desks, episcopal thrones, Easter candlesticks, tombs,
and pavements. The purely ecclesiastical character
of their work shows how large a space the Church
occupied in social life.

The Church was straining to give an ecclesiastical
cast to all society ; she sought to gather to herself
in the domain of art the young ambitions and activi-
ties then afoot, just as she sought to gain complete
control over education, and just as, more obviously,
she was striving to lay hold on political power. The
process was the result of an unconscious purpose,
such as pushes great organisms on their paths ; and
essential parts of the process were to centralize power
in the Papacy and make Rome a great ecclesiastical
capital. With an imagination worthy of old Rome,
the Papacy trusted in a time ahead when society
should become theocratic, and Rome be not merely
the ecclesiastical capital but also the political capital
of the world. Among the immediate obstacles to
this grandiose scheme were the feudal nobility and
the Commune of Rome.

The nobles of Rome and of the country round,
headed by the Anibaldi, Frangipani, Orsini, Colonna,
Savelli, Contiand others, fiercely asserted their feudal
rights and fortified themselves within their castles. In
the city itself, dotted about within the wide circuit
of the Aurelian walls, in among vineyards, market
gardens, cattle paddocks, and rubbish, the ruined

THE DECORATIVE ARTS 291

monuments of the ancient city had been transformed
into fortresses. The Colosseum, the triumphal
arches, the palaces of the Caesars, were the keeps
and donjons of rude barons who scarcely knew the
majestical origin of their strongholds. More intract-
able still than the nobles, was the Commune. Like
the cities of the north, the Commune of Rome, in-
toxicated by its ancient glory, asserted its independ-
ence and claimed to treat on even terms with Pope
and Emperor ; and yet it was forced again and again
to realize that its prosperity depended on the Papacy,
so that though it chased out the popes repeatedly and
refused to acknowledge their authority, it repeat-
edly begged them to come back. An Innocent III
might enforce his dominion and wield the right to
appoint the Roman senators ; but lesser popes were
glad to escape to Anagni, Viterbo or Perugia, and
dwell among more obedient people.

To meet these adversaries and convert turbulent
Rome into a religious capital, the Papacy had not
merely to establish a political party in the city, but
also to create an ecclesiastical atmosphere — a custom
of deference to priests, a habit of mind that associated
prosperity with the coming of pilgrims and the
dominion of the Church. One appropriate means
was to strengthen the city churches. They were the
ecclesiastical strongholds that should out-face the
castles of the nobles and the Palace of the Senators
on the Capitol. Preeminent among the Roman
churches were the great basilicas, dedicated to St.
Peter and to St. Paul ; hardly second to these were
St. John Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, and in

292 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

solemn succession of dignity followed San Lorenzo,
San Clemente, Santa Maria in Cosmedin, San Giorgio
in Velabro, San Giovanni e Paolo, San Gregorio
Magno, Santi Quattro Coronati, Santa Croce in Ge-
rusalemme, and their fellows. The way to strengthen
these churches was to make them rich and beautiful.
Art (so the Curia determined) should be the hand-
maid of theocracy. This connection of the decorat-
ive arts with the great ecclesiastical movement of
the pontificate of Innocent III bespeaks our atten-
tion for these arts, as much as do the arts them-
selves.

Of all this ecclesiastical decorative work, the pave-
ments are the most familiar. Every traveller knows
the marble pavements in the great Roman churches,
the formal geometrical patterns, the round disks of
red and green marbles, the curves and rectangles of
mosaic. This fashion for pavements spread over
Rome in the twelfth century. At that time, for one
reason and another, there was a great deal of re-
building or repairing, and many of the noted churches
adopted what is essentially the same pattern in
their marble decoration. A possible excuse for
this monotony is that their marble quarries de-
termined the shapes of the materials; the walls and
floors of antique temples furnished slabs of rect-
angular shapes, and a column sawed across yielded
disks of the same diameter. Yet excuses are idle;
the fact was that the artists lacked all inventiveness.
Each generation adopted the design taught in the
ateliers; the craftsmen who paved one basilica
copied the pavement in another. But in those days

THE DECORATIVE ARTS 293

current notions on art were very different from what
they are now. To-day we cry out for new things
and our main fault-finding charges lack of origin-
ality; then the opposite was true, the cultivated
public demanded obedience to authority.

In reading-desks, as in the pavements, there is
monotony of form and ornament. The model which
descends from the old rostrum came by way of Con-
stantinople ; it was adopted in Campania, and from
there was carried north to Rome in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. There are a goodly number of
these reading-desks in the old Roman churches. The
practice was to set the ambone for the gospel on the
south side of the nave, in order, as Innocent III
says, that the reader shall speak towards the north
against Lucifer, who said " he would sit in the sides
of the north " (Is. xiv, 13). This was the more stately
of the two, and was approached by two sets of steps
and flanked by the paschal candle. The ambone in-
tended for the epistle. was placed across the nave
opposite to it, on the north side. The most notable
of all these reading-desks is that for the gospel in
San Lorenzo. It was probably put there somewhere
about 1249, in late execution of Honorius's plan for
adorning the church. This reading-desk is about
eleven or twelve feet long, and originally had, ac-
cording to custom, two little stairways, one approach-
ing the standing-place from one end, the other from
the other. The front and the back are covered with
marble panels of divers colours, ranged in formal
pattern. Slabs of porphyry and verde antico alter-
nate in squares and rounds ; and in the spaces between

294 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

these squares and rounds and along the borders run
fantastic patterns in red, white, gold, and black. As
usual an eagle, with wings half spread, forms the
support for the holy book. It is handsome, but it
follows the earlier models, such as the pulpit in San
Clemente or Santa Maria in Cosmedin, with obse-
quious fidelity.

The canopies over the high altars display the same
conventionality and conservatism. These, however,
are of old Roman origin. They are little ornamental
roofs, held up by four pillars and surmounted by
pretty rows of pigmy columns ; and on top is an oc-
tagonal dome, with a little lantern to crown it. This
canopy is neither very solemn nor very noble, but it
is light and graceful, and on its miniature scale has
a charm comparable to that of Tuscan Romanesque
architecture.

The one point in which Roman craftsmen of our
century ventured to diverge from the practice of
their predecessors was in the use of glass mosaics.
The twelfth century decorators contented themselves
with porphyry, serpentine, and other marbles of vari-
ous colours ; but as the ecclesiastical power became
consolidated under Innocent III and felt the invig-
orating influence of the new mendicant orders, it
demanded more luxury and ostentation. In order to
meet this demand the Roman artisans adopted a gay
mosaic embroidery compounded of enamel, gold,
and many-coloured glass. The art of glass mosaics,
lost in Rome during the dark ages, had been learned
again from the monks at Monte Cassino, and from the
artists of Sicily, where it had long been in familiar

Anderson, phot.

SAN LORENZO
Rome

THE DECORATIVE ARTS 295

use or from the master mosaists of Venice ; yet, loyal
to the great classic past, the Roman artisans, like
the painters of the Roman school, got their ideas
of decoration chiefly from classical remains.

Of greater consequence than ecclesiastical furni-
ture is the decorative architecture of this period.
Here as elsewhere fashion required imitation of what
had been done before. For instance, at San Giorgio
in Velabro, the front porch, resting on Ionic columns,
followed an earlier model; and in its turn determined
the porch of San Lorenzo. More interesting than
the church porches are the monastic cloisters. The
little square garden of the monastery, shut in by
dormitory, refectory, and church, was bordered by a
covered walk. A colonnade held up the roof ; carv-
ing or mosaic enriched the entablature. Within the
enclosure, grass, trees, shrubs, creepers, flowers, and
singing-birds made the seclusion fresh and agree-
able. Here the brethren walked and talked about the
prophecies of Abbot Joachim, or discussed politics
and the affairs of the great world ; and here (after
the church itself was filled with graves or reserved
for abbots and the departed great), beneath the pave-
ment, on the side next the church, that they might
be gathered under its wing even in death, their
bodies were buried.

Roman artisans grouped themselves in ateliers
and workshops ; and their craft, like other crafts,
usually descended from father to son. There are
traces of various families that devoted themselves to
decorative art; but one family is so much better
known than the others that it has given a name to

296 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

the whole school, not its family name, for artisans
commonly had none, but the Christian name of that
member of the family most prominently mentioned
in the inscriptions which have come down to us.
His name was Cosmas, or, in Latin, Cosmatus, which
is the equivalent of the Tuscan Cosimo. From him
the whole school of Roman decorators has been called
the Cosmati. The genealogy of this family, though
not free from doubt, for some critics think that there
were two families, is usually given as follows : —

Lawrence

James the Elder

Cosmas

I

Luke James, Junior Adeodato John

The founder of the family, Lawrence, belongs to
the twelfth century and merely appears across the
threshold of the thirteenth. He, his son James, and
his grandson Cosmas, all worked as architects at
Civita Castellana, a little town to the north of Mount
Soracte. The two younger men finished their labours
there in 1210; and about the same time they were
at work in Rome, where they designed decorative
bits of architecture, such as the ornamental doorway
for the Society for the Liberation of Christian Slaves,
that still stands hard by San Tommaso in Formis.
Lawrence and James also made the reading-desk for
the gospel and probably that for the epistle in the
church of Aracceli. These desks (much altered now)
follow the familiar Roman model, both in form and

THE DECORATIVE ARTS 297

decoration, except that here, perhaps for the first
time in Rome, glass mosaics are used for ornament.

By this time the family stood in such high repute
that when the Benedictine monks of Santa Scolas-
tica at Subiaco were rebuilding their monastery
about the year 1235, they employed several of its
members. The monastery of Sacro Speco, a little
higher up on the steep ravine above the river Anio,
had been recently rebuilt and decorated with frescoes
of popes and saints ; and the pious brethren of Santa
Scolastica wished to possess a cloister which should
enable them, in one respect at least, to outdo their
neighbours. James the Elder designed one side of the
new cloister, and after his death Cosmas, with his
sons, Luke and James, Junior, completed the work.
There is no special merit to distinguish this cloister
from others; except that there is a touch of classic
feeling in the design and decoration, which testifies
to the strength of the classic tradition among Roman
craftsmen, and confers an artistic justification to
their title, " Gives Romani." At Anagni, too, when
the bishop undertook to render the crypt of his
cathedral worthy of its holy relics, some ten or
maybe twenty years before the nameless painters
were at work there painting the frescoes of St. Mag-
nus and others, Cosmas and his same two sons were
employed to lay the pavement. They followed the
usual Roman ecclesiastical pattern both in the crypt
and in the upper church.

Another family, the Vassalletti, though less well
known than the Cosmati, was more richly endowed
with genius. Inscriptions that bear the family name

298 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

extend over a hundred years ; it is therefore reason-
able to infer that members of the family were decora-
tive artists for at least three generations. The most
famous work of the Vassalletti is the cloister of St.
John Lateran, built mainly during the pontificate
of Honorius III. Both in architecture and in decora-
tion this cloister is a masterpiece : the delicate, grace-
ful columns, the arches that follow one another like
the melodious notes of a happy song, the well-pro-
portioned entablature, the profusion of mosaic, the
fanciful and charming decoration, the skilful carving,
and the bewitching variety which seepis to shift
from hour to hour as sun and shade play upon the
cloistered walks, unite to make it the chief glory of
this Roman school and one of the loveliest spots in
Italy.

These exquisite Lateran cloisters mark the high-
est accomplishment of art during the first half of
our century ; and though there is nothing organic-
ally new in them, by their lightness, their grace, arid
decoration, they constitute not merely a continuation
of certain principles of classic tradition, but also a
revival of art in Rome, a dawn, which but for un-
toward circumstances would have broken into a glo-
rious day some threescore years or more before it
actually did so.

It seems likely that two Vassalletti, father and
son, had worked upon the cloister of St. Paul's, which
was built a little earlier than that of St. John Late-
ran's, and there had learned their art, disciplined
their faculties, and perfected their taste ; and it is
also likely that they were the artists employed by

The Vassall etti

Alinari, phot.

CLOISTER OF ST. JOHN LATER AN
Rome

THE DECORATIVE ARTS 299

Honorius III to erect the new portico in front of
San Lorenzo and to make the rich panelling, that
was once part of the chancel screen and is now set
against the wall on either side of the episcopal chair.
These brilliant artists had their atelier and assist-
ants, and sometimes a poor bit of work was turned
out like the little tabernacle in the church of St.
Francis at Viterbo; but there must have been a
number of excellent workmen, trained and refined
by the work on the Lateran cloister, who would
have carried on the admirable traditions of the
atelier, had it not been for the evil fate that befell
Kome. The Lateran cloister was finished about 1235 ;
then came the long series of untoward circumstances,
the atelier broke up, its artisans were dispersed.
Nothing further bears the name Vassallettus except
a paschal candle in the cathedral of Anagni carved
in 1262.

These men and their fellows are less interesting
to us, perhaps, for what they actually did than for
their relations to the larger movements that encircle
them. In one aspect they are soldiers of the Roman-
esque cause, diligently at work, digging trenches
and throwing up redoubts as it were, to defend Italy
from the mighty Barbarian style of the North that
was threatening invasion. They had little chance to
display their talents in architecture, for there were
more churches than enough in Rome already and
few other buildings were erected there, but in what
they did, like the builders of the town halls in the
communes of Lombardy, they upheld the cause of
reason and moderation. In ecclesiastical furniture,

300 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTUEY

they did not make pulpits, canopies, and chairs like
the gables of a cathedral; they followed precedents,
and preserved touches of Eastern colour, of Arabian
fancy, elements of the better influences that had
come from Constantinople as well as traditions of
ancient Rome. If their art had been able to open and
expand in the orderly sequence of favouring seasons,
if it had proceeded unvexed until the moment was
reached when Italy, ripe in wealth, in technical know-
ledge, in love of antiquity, could produce what we
call the art of the Renaissance, with its architecture,
its painting, its sculpture, its schools of decoration,
then Cosmatus and Vassallettus would have been
household words, and Rome an even greater treasure-
house of beauty than she is.

At the beginning of the century such a prospect
was within the bounds of reasonable expectation.
The popes had adopted a policy that called for the
generous employment of artists and artisans, and
Roman art quickened under the stimulus. An artis-
tic atmosphere was forming ; artists were becoming
men of consideration ; there was an exciting sense
that art was rapidly advancing, that Rome was to
exhibit once more the magnificence of the Caesars.
With such a stimulating masterpiece as the cloister
of St. John Lateran before their eyes, Roman crafts-
men would soon have thrown off their timid habits
of imitation, and then, going for schooling to an-
tique remains, would have anticipated the general
liberation of the arts that came at the end of the
century. But the strife between the Papacy and the
Hohenstauf ens stopped short this movement. Wars,

THE DECORATIVE ARTS 301

rumours of wars, the general disturbance of society,
produced their disastrous effect. All Italy suffered,
but Rome suffered most. Papal patronage, such as
was given by Innocent III and his immediate suc-
cessors, came to an abrupt end. Innocent IV was
forced to live in exile; Alexander IV was shut out
of Rome by a Ghibelline podesta; and the French
pontiffs, Urban and Clement, were indifferent to the
policy of making Rome beautiful. Not till the end
of the century did Roman art lift up its drooping
head. Then—

Quali i fioretti dal notturno gelo

chinati e chiusi, poi che il sol gl' imbianca,

si drizzan tutti aperti in loro stelo, —

under the fostering hand of Roman-born pontiffs,
the flowers of art began to spread their fair corollas
in the sunshine of prosperity.

CHAPTER XXII

INNOCENT IV (1243-1245)

Si, vendetta, tremenda vendetta
Di quest' anima e solo disio,
Di punirti gia 1' ora s' affretta
Che fatale per te tuonera.

Rigoktto.

Yes, revenge, fearful revenge
Of this soul is the only desire,
Already to punish thee hastens the hour
That shall fatally blast thee.

As I have said, the wars between the Papacy and
the Hohenstaufens cut short, almost as fatally as
Atropos, the flowering of art ; and chief among the
destructive spirits who shut their eyes, perhaps
rightly, to all except the political issue and trod
under foot religion as well as the arts, stands Inno-
cent IV. The Fieschi were a noble family of Genoa
and the country near, and, if one may judge from
the career of its most illustrious member, more given
to the pursuit of tangible advantages than of dreams
divine. Indeed, the fall from the magnanimous am-
bition of Innocent III to the fierce passions of Inno-
cent IV, shows clearly how ill an effect this worldly
strife was producing upon the Church. Innocent IV
studied law at Bologna, and for a time was one of
the canons of the cathedral at Parma under his
uncle, the bishop. Going to Rome he held important
offices during the pontificates of Honorius and Greg-
ory, and won so brilliant a reputation as a canon

INNOCENT IV 303

lawyer that he earned the sobriquet, " The Enlight-
ener of the World." He had a high temper, but
otherwise he was quite different from Gregory ; he
had no piety, no love of religion, no sympathy for
monks or mystics. He was a brave and haughty
patrician, of crafty disposition and tenacious will.
His personal morals were without fault.

Although the Genoese were for the most part
strongly adverse to the Emperor, Innocent had
always been on good terms with him ; and Fred-
erick was greatly pleased by the news of his election.
He said of him : he is " one of the noblest men in
the Empire, ... a man who in word and deed has
always acted with kindness and courtesy towards
me. I have great hopes of peace; I shall reverence
him as a father, and he will embrace me as a son."
He also wrote to congratulate Innocent upon his
election, as an old friend whose new name was a
happy augury.

The causes of mutual distrust between the Church
and the Empire were so deep that it was of little
moment what a Pope's or an Emperor's sympathies
were before election; afterwards, the two became
unjust and hostile towards one another. Both Fred-
erick and Innocent made a great parade of negoti-
ating. Ambassadors went to and fro. One cannot
help the suspicion that this diplomacy was so much
jockeying for position. If peace had been the sole
aim of each, the choice of ambassadors was, to say
the least, singular ; for the Emperor sent to the Pope
the admiral who had captured the poor prelates off
Monte Christo on their way to the council at Eome,

304 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

and the Pope sent to the Emperor one of the very
prelates who had been taken prisoners. Evidently
there were reasons under the surface that induced
them to make such choices. Each was playing a
game; and the players were well matched. The
Emperor proposed either to frighten the Pope into
easy terms or to lay hands on him ; the Pope man-
osuvred to bring affairs to such a pass that he should
be able to put the Emperor in an unfavourable light
before the world.

Frederick was quick-witted and his counsellors
were astute, but they had an excessive confidence in
their ability to overreach the Roman Curia. This
disposition to underrate the sagacity of the Curia
was part of Frederick's general contempt for the
priesthood, and it was not justified. The Curia was
well able to play the game of politics. In the deeper
matters that concerned the religious spirit of Europe,
and through that spirit the ultimate prosperity of
the Church, the Curia sometimes behaved itself in
an ignorant or reckless way; but in the fence of
superficial politics, in the thrust, the passado, the
puncto reverso, it was an accomplished master.

The wary antagonists circled about one another,
each feeling the other's guard. There was talk of a
meeting. Innocent went part- way to meet Frederick,
but not beyond a day's ride from the coast, and
dispatched an urgent prayer to his Genoese com-
patriots to send a fleet to his rescue. To capture the
Pope might have served Frederick's purpose; to
make the world believe that Frederick wished to lay
sacrilegious hands on the high priest of Christendom

INNOCENT IV 305

would certainly serve Innocent's purpose. The Gen-
oese fleet cast anchor within reach. Then Innocent
made his lunge. He took horse by night and with
a handful of men rode in hot haste across mountain
and moor to the shore, got on board one of the Gen-
oese ships, and sailed away. To make the insidious
machinations of the Emperor look still more black,
he hurried away from Italy across the Alps and
took refuge in the city of Lyons, under the wing of
France. The journey was severe, and on the way,
Innocent nearly died. From this flight to the last
day of his life, whether it was because he believed
Frederick meant to seize him, whether he laid his
proximity to death at Frederick's door, or whether
he saw that the struggle was in its nature a outrance,
Innocent hated Frederick with an implacable hatred,
and, confounding the cause of the Church with his
own thirst for revenge, made use of all her resources
to bring about Frederick's ruin.

Once safely lodged in Lyons the Pope returned to
the plan that Frederick had frustrated, and summoned
an oecumenical council. It was a critical period in
the history of Europe ; for it was the first time that
a council of the Church Universal had been convoked
solely for a political purpose. Gregory IX was a
good man, — even his adversaries admitted that he
was " apostolicus, sanctus et bonus" — and in con-
voking a council at Rome, though he wished to trans-
act business of state rather than of religion, he had
cherished the hope of making peace ; Innocent en-
tertained no such idea, — he called the Church to-
gether as a war measure in order to condemn his

306 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

enemy. The Council of Lyons is a summing-up of
the consequences of the long rivalry between the
Papacy and the Empire. Innocent's excuse for this
misuse of his sacred office is that he really believed
without a momentary doubt that the Emperor enter-
tained the purpose, and strove directly and indirectly,
by force and by fraud, to overthrow the Papacy and
the whole ecclesiastical fabric.

The scene at Lyons was highly dramatic. The old
quarters of the city lie in the plain, with the Rhone
on one side and the Saone on the other; but St. John's
quarter is on the right bank of the Saone between
the river and the steep hill of the Fourviere. Here
stood the new cathedral of St. John and a monastery,
protected, together with the surrounding buildings,
by a fortified wall. The whole quarter wore the grim
and stern aspect of a fortress. The cathedral was not
yet finished. The choir and the transepts, built be-
fore the architecture of the Ile-de-France had im-
posed its taste upon Burgundy, are Romanesque, the
nave is Gothic. So the building shows the particular
charm and grace that bursts into flower when Gothic
and Romanesque meet and mingle. In the cathedral
of Lyons they meet and kiss by the triumphal arch,
so that this seems a sort of Golden Gate where two
intimately sympathetic aspirations unite in a common
purpose of worship. The nave, rising above the ceil-
ing of the choir, nobly shows the triumph of the
Gothic. The walls were then majestic in their bare-
ness ; and the glorious glass of the windows gave
a many-coloured spleixdour to the dark and solemn
interior. It would be hard to imagine a spot better

INNOCENT IV 307

adapted for the meeting-place of pure-hearted men
bent upon holy things.

On June 28, 1245, patriarchs, cardinals, arch-
bishops, bishops, abbots, ambassadors from kings,
envoys from cities, Baldwin, the Emperor of Con-
stantinople, and various nobles, gathered in the great
church. Thaddeus of Suessa was present as proctor
for the Emperor. Nevertheless, the meeting repre-
sented the Church Universal in a lame and mutilated
fashion ; there were few prelates from Germany,
none from The Kingdom, for fear of Frederick, and
none from the Holy Land, as there had not been
time enough for them to come. The Pope said mass
and mounted his throne ; Baldwin sat on his right
hand. The choir sang Veni Creator ; the Pope him-
self preached the sermon, taking as his text : " Is it
nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? Behold, and
see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow,
which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath
afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger." He then
enumerated the five wounds of Christ : the invasion
of Europe by the Tartars, the Greek schism, the
spread of heresy, the new hordes of heathen invad-
ing the Holy Land, and for the climax, the wicked-
ness of the Emperor. He described Frederick's
wrongdoings point by point; he produced Fred-
erick's letters to prove his charges, speaking with
evident animosity. In fact, Innocent acted as prose-
cuting attorney and made no pretence at all of ju-
dicial impartiality. Thaddeus of Suessa spoke on
behalf of his master; he denied or excused the
various counts in the indictment, and asked for an

308 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

adjournment in order that Frederick might have an
opportunity to attend and plead his own cause.
" God forbid/' cried the Pope ; " I fear his tricks ;
if he comes, I shall go, I am neither ready nor fit
for martyrdom." It is unlikely that the Emperor
had any intention of attending, for he had already
written to the cardinals that he had given his envoy
full power to appeal from the unjust trial by the
Pope, to God, to a future pope, or to a future
council. The request for an adjournment was prob-
ably made either to gain time, or else to get the
advantage that would accrue from a refusal of the
common right, which every accused man had, of
appearing in person to defend himself. However,
at the request of the ambassadors from the Kings
of England and France, first one and then another
brief adjournment was granted.

Frederick did not come ; Thaddeus of Suessa
conducted his defence. The Pope presented the case
for the prosecution with great fulness. The evidence
was marshalled to prove three distinct charges ; first,
that Frederick had violated his duty as a Christian
and therefore deserved excommunication; second,
that as King of Sicily he had been false to his feudal
allegiance to the Papacy; and, third, that as Emperor
he had failed in his fundamental duties, such as pro-
tecting the Church ; and for these causes deserved to
be deprived of his royal and imperial crowns. Cer-
tain witnesses testified against Frederick ; but, as
Frederick's acts were notorious, the Pope chiefly
confined himself to documentary evidence to prove
the existence of those papal rights which Frederick

INNOCENT IV 309

had infringed. He introduced letters and charters,
written or granted by Frederick from the time of his
imperial coronation, which related to the temporal
domains of the Church ; letters and covenants written
or sworn to by Frederick which related to The King-
dom from a time before he went to Germany ; char-
ters to the Church granted by former Emperors ; and
various letters from the Kings of England, France,
Aragon, and Bohemia.

The proofs furnished were not a matter of great
consequence ; the verdict of the Council was not to
be determined by the weight or the relevancy of the
evidence produced in court. There was a fact out-
side the record of charters and grants that told
fatally against the defendant. Everybody present
was thinking of their unfortunate brethren who had
set out to attend the council in Rome. Excepting the
cardinals who had been released to attend this
council, and the French prelates set free after eighteen
months at the urgent insistence of King Louis, the
captive clergy were still in prison ; some of them
had died from privation and ill-treatment. Condem-
nation was a foregone conclusion. Thaddeus's defence
was shouted down ; he appealed to a future pope and
a future council. Innocent pronounced sentence. He
repeated the excommunication against Frederick, he

released all his subiects from their allegiance, he
j

proclaimed that those to whom the imperial election
pertained should proceed to the election of an Em-
peror, and that he and the cardinals would choose a
successor for The Kingdom. Thaddeus cried out,
" This day is a day of wrath, calamity, and misery ";

310 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

but the Pope was inflexible ; he said, " My part I
have done, let God bring his will in this matter to
fulfilment " ; the clergy chanted, " We praise thee,
0 Lord," and in tragic sign that hope was extin-
guished quenched their torches on the floor.

The sentence, which reverberated through Europe,
raised three questions : Did the council have juris-
diction? Did the evidence justify the verdict? Did
the offences charged warrant the punishment im-
posed? The ecclesiastical and the civil decrees
stand on their several footings. As to the excom-
munication the Church was fully in its right. An
oecumenical council had plenary jurisdiction over the
admission or exclusion of Christians from com-
munion with the Church. It is true that all Christ-
endom was not represented at the council ; but as
to Germany and Sicily, Frederick was estopped from
taking that objection, for his commands and menaces
had kept the clergy of the Empire from attending ;
and at any rate, the Pope had no need of a consent-
ing council before imposing the ban.

Jurisdiction to depose an Emperor was a different
matter. The Popes had claimed such a right ever
since the days of Hildebrand ; they asserted that it
was incident to their office. It was undeniable that
an Emperor-elect did not become Emperor until he
had received his crown from the Pope ; on the other
hand, the Popes certainly had no right to appoint
an Emperor. The truth was that the relative rights
of Pope and Emperor had never been settled ; their
respective claims to power had none of the certainty
that attaches to modern ideas of legal rights, and

INNOCENT IV 311

there was nothing that could be called law to decide
between them. The members of the council, how-
ever, had full confidence in their own authority ; it
seemed reasonable that there should be some power
in Christendom to depose its elective head ; and it
would seem that Frederick admitted their jurisdic-
tion. He appealed to a future council ; and in com-
plaining of the sentence took technical objections
that did not touch the competency of the tribunal.
From an ecclesiastical point of view the offence de-
served the punishment meted to it. The Emperor
had not only failed in his duty to defend the Church,
but he had even persecuted her ; he had prevented
the meeting of the Church militant ; he had put in
prison prelates whose only offence was that they at-
tempted to obey the Pope's summons. Moreover, as
an excommunicated man, and perhaps a misbeliever,
he was not a fit person to be monarch of a Christian
empire and secular head of Christendom.

The deposition from the Empire was a grave mat-
ter, but as events turned out, the deposition from
The Kingdom was a still graver matter. Upon that
part of the council's judgment turns the whole ques-
tion of right or wrong in the destruction of the
Hohenstaufens and in the coming of Charles of
Anjou. And it has been so common for sympathy
to range itself against the Church in these affairs
that the matter deserves special consideration. The
deposition from The Kingdom was a question of
feudal law. The relation of lord and vassal existed
between the Papacy and the King ; nobody disputed
this. The Papacy was the lord suzerain of The King-

312 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

dom by universal consent. The whole world believed,
as a definite historical fact, that the papal title orig-
inated in the grant of Constantine to Pope Silvester ;
but the origin of the title was immaterial, the Nor-
man kings had acknowledged it, Frederick II him-
self had most solemnly avowed it. The Pope was his
lord, he was the Pope's vassal. By feudal law and
feudal custom the obligations inherent in that rela-
tion were clear and definite. Among the vassal's
duties to his lord were these : to do him homage, to
acknowledge his rights, to do him no wrong, and to
pay the tribute that had been fixed. On the vassal's
fidelity depended his title to his fief. If he turned
heretic or if he turned traitor, his fief was forfeit.
These rules were well settled wherever the feudal
system prevailed. Count Raymond of Toulouse had
been dispossessed for heresy, and the sentence had
been confirmed by the Fourth Lateran Council, at
which representatives from all Christendom, clerical
and lay, attended. In a famous case from Greece
brought before the King of France and his court, it
was decided that if the relation of liegeman and
lord had been fully constituted, and the liegeman
then made war on his lord, the fief was forfeit.

Every code based on the feudal system accepted
and confirmed these principles. It is provided by the
Assises of Jerusalem, the body of feudal laws codi-
fied for the Latin Kingdom in the Holy Land, that
a fief is forfeit if a liegeman turns heretic, if he de-
nies his lord or lays violent hands on him, or takes
the field against him, or fails to meet an accusation
of treason in his lord's court when summoned. In

INNOCENT IV 313

such cases the feudal ties were broken, the fief re-
verted to the suzerain, and he had the right to grant
it anew to a loyal subject. Bracton, the great com-
mentator of English law, the predecessor of Coke,
Blackstone, and Kent, in De Legibus et Consuetudini-
bus Anglice (circa 1250) says : " Homage is the bond
of law . . . reciprocal ... by which the tenant in
his turn is obliged and constrained to keep faith with
his lord and render service due. . . . The tenant for-
feits his fief if he does any grave injury to his lord, or
sides with his enemy, in counsel or comfort, against
him ... or if he does aught to divest him of his
inheritance, or if he lays violent hands on his lord."
In Frederick's own code of laws, promulgated at
Melfi in 1231, it is laid down: "Vassals must safe-
guard their lords in life and limb, from bodily cap-
ture and from injury to their honour. . . . Vassals
shall not be privy in plot, consent, or knowledge, to
their lord's losing his land, rather they shall warrant
and defend it to the utmost of their power against
everybody. ... If a vassal shall commit a felony
against his lord, ... or having been thrice sum-
moned shall not render service due . . . the lord
may disseize him " (Constitutiones Regni Sicilice,
liber 3, titles 18, 19).

Such was the law ; not even Thaddeus of Suessa
or Pier della Vigna could dispute this. The ques-
tion before the council was whether the King had
violated his feudal duty toward his sovereign in so
grave a particular as to justify disseizin; and the
council was to judge the case on its own knowledge
and belief. It was not limited, like our petty jury, to

314 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

judge according to sworn testimony only, but rather
like a jury of the vicinage to judge according to
common knowledge. Most of the offences charged
against Frederick were matters of common know-
ledge. He had not paid his feudal tribute for years ;
he had interfered with the ecclesiastical rights of his
suzerain in Sicily ; he had usurped the province of
Benevento ; he had prevented an oscumenical coun-
cil; he had imprisoned Roman cardinals; he had
made war on the Pope and invaded the Patrimony
of St. Peter ; and, according to dark reports, if he
was not a heretic or a misbeliever, he was far more
in sympathy with Mohammedanism than with Christ-
ianity. These charges the Emperor's proctors might
meet with excuse and avoidance, with explanation
and extenuation, with denials here and there on
outlying matters, but at the core, by consent of
all, the King of Sicily was guilty of fatal breaches
of duty toward his suzerain lord. In this condem-
nation ended Frederick's long course of double-
dealing, with the gentle Honorius, with the noble
and fiery Gregory IX and with the hard-headed,
hard-hearted Innocent IV; and from this condem-
nation flowed bitter consequences to Frederick, to
his children, and his children's children.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE END OF FREDERICK'S LIFE (1245-1250)

Zens, the high God ! — whatever be dim in donbt,

This can our thought track out —
The blow that fells the sinner is of God,

And as he wills, the rod
Of vengeance smiteth sore. One said of old,

" The Gods list not to hold
A reckoning with him whose feet oppress

The grace of holiness " —
An impious word ! for whenso'er the sire

Breathed forth rebellious fire —
What time his household overflowed the measure

Of bliss and health and treasure —
His children's children read the reckoning plain,

At last, in tears and pain !

Agamemnon — E. D. A. MORSHEAD.

THE affair of the Council was badly conducted by
Frederick. The assembled prelates were not an im-
partial body, they had not been convened for an
impartial purpose; Frederick knew this, and he
should have addressed himself over their heads to
the outside world, for all western Europe was eag-
erly attending to what was said and done within the
walls of St. John's cathedral. With England, France,
Spain, Germany, and Italy for audience, Frederick
might well have hoped to win the prize of popular
sympathy. That public, true to human nature, was
vulgarly interested in the criminal charges against
the Emperor, his violated vows, his breaches of cove-
nants, convention, and morality, but it was also deeply
interested in two fundamental matters, its own

316 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

material well-being and its spiritual well-being. The
Emperor might have lifted the issues between him
and the Pope up to the noblest concerns of body
and soul; but the crafty, strong-willed Pope suc-
ceeded in keeping them down to the truth or falsity
of the criminal charges against the Emperor.

Economic development was necessarily lay. Mam-
mon, if one may so call the single-purposed spirit
of gain, had no interest in ecclesiastical matters;
its one desire was for order, for the removal of
feudal exactions and of the feudal barons who stood
like retiarii in the way, ready to enmesh the young
limbs of trade in their fatal nets ; it would give its
sympathy to either power that would best procure
order. The Church was no real friend of economic
progress, and the Emperor might well have put her
in the wrong in the eyes of Mammon. He might
have professed to represent the cause of imperial
order as it had been in the days of the Antonines,
when all the world enjoyed the peaceful enforce-
ment of law. But instead he insisted on obsolete
prerogatives against the Lombard communes, ranged
himself on the side of feudalism, and let the Church
pose as the friend of manufacture and trade.

In spiritual matters, too, the Emperor wholly failed
to rise to the height of the occasion. The Church,
indeed, as all the world knew, had been false in
many respects to her own professed doctrines, but
she had some meritorious achievements to her credit
in the popular mind : she sanctioned and upheld the
Franciscan Order, and with all her faults and short-
comings she still proclaimed a reign of peace and

THE END OF FREDERICK'S LIFE 317

good will on earth. To this ideal the Emperor pre-
sented no alternative, except so far as he practised
an Epicurean freedom from all irksome restraints.
This was the fault of the Emperor and of his law-
yers; they misread the signs of their time; satisfied,
themselves, with poetry, they cared little for visions
beatific. It was not a fault inherent in the ideal of
empire. Had Dante been living to put his passionate
beliefs into words, he might not have modified the
verdict of the council, but he would have affected
the judgment of Christendom; for the judgment of
Christendom upon Frederick, and even the judg-
ment of the council, was based on things spiritual.
The old issue between an ecclesiastical and a lay
organization of society had already been decided.
In the time of Innocent III, the clerical power had
reached its flood, it was now on the ebb ; modern
Europe had been born and modern Europe was
opposed to civil government administered by priests.
Even by the time of Innocent IV the -growth of
manufacture and trade had rendered any such issue
obsolete. Europe was stirring with productive en-
ergies, and on the question whether the Church or
the Empire should hold the supreme temporal power,
her sympathy was with the Empire. But as it is the
wont of judicial tribunals, as well as, generally
speaking, the wont of society at large, to decide
questions according to old ideas and old customs,
and not according to the exigencies of the present
or the needs of the future, economic arguments
would have been out of place. The council would
not have listened to them, Europe might not have

318 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

listened to them; but Europe, if not the council,
would have given respectful attention to an argu-
ment to prove that the spiritual interests of Christ-
endom would not be endangered by the triumph
of the Emperor. For this the lawyers of Frederick's
court were of no avail; and when Dante published
his De Monarchia, the Empire had already been
relegated to the limbo of antiquated things.

Nevertheless the De Monarchia shows the moral
forces that might have been marshalled upon the
imperial side. The value of empire, Dante says, must
be judged by its bearing upon the goal of human
civilization, which is to bring all blossomings of the
human spirit to the fullest fruitage. For such fruit-
age universal peace is necessary, and unity under a
single head, and the cooperation of all parts for the
welfare of the whole. The independent parts cannot
adjust their mutual relations unless they have some
supreme court before which to bring them ; and
justice needs a judge furnished with supreme powers.
And all through the argument in favour of a universal
monarch Dante keeps in mind the final goal of hu-
man civilization : " Ripeness is all." Such arguments
as Dante uses might seem to apply as well to the
Church as to the Empire ; but they do not, because
the power of the sword is necessary to enforce peace
and justice, and because (as he says) the history of
the rise and culmination of the Roman Empire is
proof that by God's will the Emperor is to be the
universal monarch and that he derives his powers
from God.

But Dante wrote two generations too late, and the

THE END OF FREDERICK'S LIFE 319

decision of the council may be taken as the real end
of the mediaeval Empire. Men's minds were divided,
and according to place, condition, rank, and circum-
stance, some men thought one way and some another,
but on the whole the spirit of the age came to the
opinion that the Empire was unfitted for the modern
world then beginning, and the Council of Lyons
gave rude expression to this opinion. In later gen-
erations Emperors came down into Italy, but never
again in the gallant, masterful manner of their pred-
ecessors; and from the date of the decree of depo-
sition Frederick himself was fighting for his crowns.
So harsh was his punishment that it seemed as if a
spirit of retribution were pursuing him to take ven-
geance for his wanton disregard of the spiritual
beliefs of his time. Blow upon blow fell upon him.
The first was a blow to his power and to his pride.
Parma, on a sudden, turned from him and joined
the Guelfs.

Parma, like most of her high-spirited sister cities,
had been a member of the Lombard League against
Barbarossa ; but ever since Frederick II had raised
his standard as a claimant to the Empire, she had
inclined to his side. In the old days, before he had
received the imperial crown, while he was still pro-
claiming that he owed his victorious career to God
and to his venerable mother, the Roman Church, he
had rewarded the city's loyalty by confirming her
independent rights and privileges : " Our Serene
and Royal Clemency is wont to dispense favours to
its subjects and to confer abundant benefits on those
whose faith and devotion to the Empire has always

320 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

been found sincere and true ; . . . So, We, mindful
of the honest faith and devoted service which our be-
loved and loyal citizens of Parma have always shown
to the Empire and, as We hope, will always show,"
... do grant and confirm, in due legal terms, upon
the city a communal bill of rights. From that time
on, side by side with Pavia, Cremona, and Modena,
Parma had remained loyal to the Empire ; and
Frederick had continued his favour except for a
momentary suspension at the time of his imperial
coronation when the podesta had been disobedient
to the Church.

Parma was a prosperous town, renowned for her
cloth and wool ; her trade was brisk, her citizens
industrious. Set in a flat plain, her situation was not
picturesque ; but she had her share of civic pride
and had striven to make her public buildings beau-
tiful. Her cathedral, if not to be compared to that
at Modena for charm or grace, was distinctly su-
perior to its rival at Piacenza ; and the marble bap-
tistery was one of the finest in Italy. The population
was not altogether pacific. The nobles, as elsewhere,
were divided into two factions; one held for the
Empire, the other inclined to the Church. The peo-
ple, however, were generally indifferent to these
quarrels. Society was undergoing a gradual trans-
formation towards democracy. The guilds, fifteen
in number, with the cloth-merchants, the money-
changers, and the butchers at their head, had organ-
ized a people's party, very much as the guilds had
done in Bologna ; and they were more interested in
trade than in the rivalry between Pope and Em-

Uttiiedetto Antelami

Alinari, phot.

BAPTISTERY
Parma

THE END OF FREDERICK'S LIFE 321

per or, and kept aloof attending to their business,
though force of circumstances was pushing them
more and more to the Guelf side. The Pope had
friends and relations in the city ; his uncle had been
bishop, and he himself had lived there ; three of his
sisters and a niece had married into the nobility ;
and the people's party, in their efforts to strengthen
themselves against the nobility who were chiefly
Ghibelline, had chosen his nephew as their leader.
The Emperor's adherents, feeling the growing ten-
sion, behaved tyrannically ; they took possession of
the bishop's palace and of his revenues, imposed
heavy taxes on the churches, and put guards in all
the towers. The Guelf leaders took alarm and fled
to Piacenza or Milan. In those cities, with the help
of the papal legate, Gregory of Montelungo, they
made ready an expedition to force their way back,
and set forth on a Sunday. At that time, Arrigo
Testa, a poet of the Sicilian school, who had, how-
ever, given far more of his time to his political
career than to poetry, was podesta of Parma. On
that very Sunday a gay wedding was going on, and
there had been too much eating and drinking. In
the midst of the revels word came that the " out-
siders " (as a banished faction was called) were on
the march to Parma. The wedding guests started
from the table and, following Arrigo, sallied forth
to meet the enemy : —

Ah ! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness.

322 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Perhaps the roistering young cavaliers sang Ar-
rigo's song as they saddled and galloped away : —

Di me fermanza avete,
k' eo so in vostra tenuta ;
pero meo cor non muta
di far leale omagio.

You hold me bond,
Your vassal true am I,
And, so, my fixed heart
Doth pay all fealty.

The Ghibellines met the enemy a little beyond the
river Taro ; but the banquet had been a fatal prepa-
ration for the fight, wine had tamed their muscles if
not their spirits, and they were driven back to the
Taro and put to rout ; Arrigo and other noblemen
were killed, and the Church party swept on victori-
ous into the city.

Parma was important strategically because it com-
manded both the Via Emilia and the road over the
Apennines by Pontremoli into Tuscany ; moreover,
the revolt sorely wounded the Emperor's pride. He
had gone to Turin, making ready for a dash over
the Alps to Lyons, and was considering the risk of a
war with France in case he should do so, when news
of the defeat reached him. He turned round, sum-
moned the Ghibellines from far and near, and laid
siege to the town. Like circling hawks they stooped
to his lure : his sons, the fighting Enzio, imperial
legate in all Italy, Frederick of Antioch, imperial
vicar in Tuscany, and young Manfred, still a boy,
child of the beautiful Bianca Lancia; the swart
Ezzelino, imperial vicar in the March of Treviso ;

THE END OF FREDERICK'S LIFE 323

Uberto Pelavicini, imperial vicar in the Lunigiana ;
the brave Marquis Lancia, uncle to Bianca and cap-
tain of the Empire from Pavia to Asti ; and his two
most trusted counsellors, Thaddeus of Suessa and
Pier della Vigna, were there. Loyal barons brought
their troo.ps, loyal cities sent contingents. On the
other side the Guelfs answered battle-cry with battle-
cry. Their two notable generals, Gregory of Monte-
lungo, the papal legate, and the Marquis of Este,
hurried with their forces to the defence of the city.
Milan sent a thousand of her best knights, Piacenza
sent four hundred, the Count of San Bonifazio came
with a troop from Mantua, Ferrara too dispatched
her quota.

The defences of the town were too strong to be
carried by assault, it was necessary to lay siege ; and
as it was impossible to construct the besieging lines
all around the town, the Emperor built an elaborately
fortified camp, which he named " Victory," and
maintained as close a blockade as he could. The
siege lasted six months. The cruelty on both sides
was very great. Frederick adopted a plan of exe-
cuting two or four prisoners every day in full sight
of the garrison, but desisted at the prayer of his
Pavian allies. And when imperial spies, many of
whom were women, came into the town hidden in
loads of hay or in carts with false bottoms, and were
caught by the garrison, they were tortured and burnt
to death. Nevertheless the siege was tedious, and
Frederick became careless. One day he weakened
his lines by sending a detachment of troops to build
a bridge across the Po which should be of service in

324 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

i

the blockade, and he himself went hunting. The
garrison took advantage o£ this chance ; they made
a sortie, carried the besiegers' lines, drove the im-
perial troops pell-mell, captured and burned the fort,
got possession of the Emperor's crown and his royal
insignia, and returned in triumph to the city. Thad-
deus of Suessa was among the killed. The Ghibel-
lines scattered in all directions and Frederick himself
fled to Cremona. He wrote letters to belittle his
defeat and explain how it had happened, and talked
of renewing the siege ; but it was a vain attempt to
save appearances. The victory had been complete ;
Parma was lost, and what was worse, the Emperor's
prestige was irretrievably hurt. The cardinal legate,
Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, ignorant that an avenging
destiny would consign him to hell by the side of
Frederick II, marched triumphantly at the head of
an army from Bologna through Romagna ; and city
after city — Imola, Faenza, Forli, Forlimpopoli,
Cesena — opened its gates and ranged itself on the
side of the Church. A year later a more personal
and a more tragic blow fell on the Emperor; at
Parma he had lost Thaddeus of Suessa, now he lost
his other most trusted counsellor, Pier della Vigna.
In the second round of the seventh circle of hell
the souls of those who with violent hand have taken
their own lives, miserably deformed into stunted
trees, take root and put forth twigs. One of these
plants spoke to Dante : —

I am he, who held both the keys

Of Frederick's heart, and turned them,
Locking and unlocking, so softly

THE END OF FREDEKICK'S LIFE 325

That from his bosom counsel I shut out almost every man.

I bore such great loyalty to the glorious office

That for its sake I lost both sleep and life.
The strumpet, that never from Caesar's house

Has turned her wanton eyes,

(Common bane and vice of courts,)
Inflamed all minds against me ;

And they, all flaming, set Augustus aflame

So that my happy honours turned to grievous woe.
My soul in disdainful disgust

Thinking by death to escape disdain,

Made me unjust to my just self.
By the new roots of this tree

I swear to you I never broke my faith

To my lord, who was so worthy of honour.

(Inferno, xm.)

Pier della Vigna (1190-1249), miserably destined
to become this lost soul, came from Capua. His father
was in narrow circumstances, and Pier got his edu-
cation as best he could. He became a notary, gave
signal proof of his abilities, and was presented to
the Emperor. A year or two later he was made judge,
and after the treaty of peace with the Pope (1230),
when the Emperor was able to give his attention to
civil affairs at home, Pier rose to be one of his close
counsellors, and took part in matters of the highest
consequence. It was in these earlier years that he
wrote poetry, exchanging sonnets with the Notary,
with Jacopo Mostacci, and perhaps with the unlucky
podesta, Arrigo Testa. He undoubtedly took an im-
portant part in codifying the Constitutions of Sicily
(1231) ; and after that he was engaged in diplomacy.
He went to England to arrange the Emperor's
marriage with Princess Isabella, sister of King

326 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Henry HI ; he was sent on embassies to the Pope and
to the King of France. He was in intimate consul-
tation with the Emperor about the proceedings at
the Council of Lyons. It was he who wrote most
important state papers for Frederick ; it was he who
was chosen to deliver official orations on the Em-
peror's behalf; it was he who composed street bal-
lads to lampoon the friars. His star was always in
the ascendant. In 1247 he was raised to be proto-
notary of the Empire and logothete of The Kingdom,
high honours wrapped in the obscurity of obsolete
titles. He had become the model for princes' favour-
ites to fashion themselves upon. He was not only the
Emperor's familiar friend, but he was or had been in
intimate relations with the imperial family. He ar-
gues at length to the Empress that rose is a colour
to be preferred to violet ; he thanks Prince Conrad
for the gift of a ring ; he writes to King Enzio. He
is on terms of very kindly intercourse with the most
distinguished men in The Kingdom, such as the
Archbishops of Capua and Palermo, as well as with
the professors at Bologna and Naples. His praises
were on the lips of all who hoped for preferment :
" Nature, teeming mother," — so writes Nicolas de
Rocca, — " has given birth to brilliant nurslings far
and wide throughout the world ; she has distilled a
portion of her rich essence into the hearts of very
many, but, outdoing expectation, she has brought
together into one body what she had distributed
among all, and produced Magister Pier della Vigna,
more brilliant than all. . . . For the genius of
happy knowledge, in its search for a resting-place,

THE END OF FREDERICK'S LIFE 327

wandered all over, in the sweep of the heavens, in
the depths of the abyss, and at last fixed its tents
and circumscribed the bounds of its activity in him.
. . . He is a second Joseph, to whom as a faithful
interpreter Great Ca?sar has committed the rule of
the round world ; he is the keybearer of the Em-
pire, he shuts and no man opens, he opens and no
man shuts ; the tuneful trumpet of his eloquence,
in speech sweet as honey, soothes the hearts of all
that hear him, yea, as if by divine intuition he re-
veals whatever lies hid under the sun, excepting the
seven seals of the closed book [Rev. v, 1-3]. . . .
He is a Peter founded on a rock so that he shall
establish others by the firmness of his faith ; fixed
in solid sincerity he shall be a foundation to others.
Peter, the insignificant fisherman, prince of the
apostles, having left his nets followed God ; but this
Peter does not leave his master at all. The old shep-
herd tended the Lord's flock ; but the new athlete
by the Emperor's side, planting virtues and extir-
pating errors, weighs whatever he says in the scales
of justice. Peter of Galilee thrice denied his Lord ;
but God forbid that Peter of Capua one single time
should deny his. 0 happy Vine . . . even the tongue
of Tully would find it hard to set forth thy manifold
virtues." And the learned Doctor Accursius wrote:
"In the whole world there is no man alive who has
a will more prompt to serve you than I, or takes
more thought for your honour."

Fed upon phrases such as these, Pier floated on
the full-blown bladder of imperial favour over a
sea of glory; in January, 1249, he was with the

328 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Emperor at Cremona, and no sign gave warning of
impending danger. All of a sudden, in February,
he was arrested on the charge of high treason, and
his eyes were put out. With all light quenched, did
he then remember his joyous youth and the lady to
whom he wrote his love-songs?

Ch' eo non euro s' io dollio od 6 martiro
membrando 1' ora died io vengno a voi ;

I care not if I suffer pain or martyrdom
Remembering the hour in which I come to thee.

What Pier did to incur Frederick's suspicion is not
clear. Various stories got abroad. One was to the effect
that he had had treasonable dealings with the Pope,
but there is no evidence now to support that theory ;
another, that he had amassed a great fortune and that
Frederick coveted his wealth, but this supposition is
merely an amplification of the saying attributed to
Frederick : " I fatten pigs in order to feed on them."
The third charged Pier with having instigated the
Emperor's physician to poison him. Frederick him-
self seems to have believed this accusation. But
Frederick was in no judicial mood. From nature he
had received a passionate temperament, and ever since
the Council of Lyons he was in a highly overwrought
state. His wrath at being defied and foiled by church-
men, whom he loathed and despised, amounted to
frenzy. When he first heard of Innocent's sentence
of deposition, he behaved like a madman. He put his
crown on his head, defied the Pope to take it off, and
ranted like a third-rate actor. He had himself been
treacherous all his life, and now the same cup was

THE END OF FREDERICK'S LIFE 329

commended to his own lips. Many courtiers had
already abandoned him. The Bishop of Ratisbon,
Chancellor of Germany, went over to the enemy ; so
did Eichard of Montenero, Master Judiciary of
Sicily ; the Bishop of Bamberg also, who had filled
the high office of protonotary of the Imperial Court ;
and still others, like the Duke of Lorraine. In The
Kingdom several nobles plotted to murder him ; even
his falconer, Ruggero de Amicis, the poet, was false ;
and after the defeat at Parma, Frederick felt that he
could trust nobody. Envy, " the strumpet that never
from Caesar's dwelling turns her wanton eyes/' stirred
up enemies against Pier. However it may be, he was
thrown into prison, blinded, and condemned to be
paraded through The Kingdom and then put to
death. He escaped this final ignominy by dashing
his brains out against a stone. Dante believed that
Pier was innocent, and though he puts him in hell
as a self-murderer, he does not condemn him to the
circle of traitors ; and perhaps Pier della Vigna, as a
stout partisan of the Empire, and as a poet, would
rather have had his reputation cleared in Dante's
judgment than in any tribunal whatsoever. In the
Divina Commedia he is forever innocent.

In May of the same year another blow fell upon
Frederick. His well-beloved son, the gallant, fair-
haired, fighting Enzio, was made prisoner by the
Bolognese. Enzio had been imperial lieutenant in all
Italy, as such he had had chief command of the im-
perial forces in Lbmbardy, while Ezzelino da Romano
was head of the Ghibelline party in the east, and
the Marquis Lancia and Uberto Pelavicini to the

330 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

west. Enzio is, perhaps, the most picturesque figure
of all the gallant House of Hohenstaufen. Twenty-
nine years old, he had long proved his abilities;
he had won several victories on land, and he had
been on board the imperial fleet which captured the
unfortunate prelates. He had married Adalasia,
heiress to the counties of Turris and Gallura in Sar-
dinia, and his father had crowned him king. This
performance added fuel to the quarrel with the
Pope, for the Pope claimed the island as part of the
papal domain and had expressly forbidden Adalasia
to marry any man disloyal to the Holy See. A charm-
ing creature like Enzio, an Emperor's son, a con-
queror and a poet, with " a lightsome eye, a soldier's
mien, a feather of the blue," was not well fitted
for strait-laced matrimony ; or it may be that some
father confessor or a friar got Adalasia's ear. At
any rate, in a few years she returned to the Church
party and received forgiveness from the Pope; and
Enzio married a niece of Ezzelino's.

On May 26, 1249, the Bolognese, according to
their annual custom, sent an expedition against
Modena. Enzio rushed to the defence and attacked
the enemy at Fossalta, a little place near where the
river Panaro crosses the Via Emilia, a few miles
southeast of Modena. The Bolognese were in greater
numbers than he thought ; his men were routed, and
he was taken prisoner, together with four hundred
knights and twelve hundred foot soldiers. There was
great excitement and rejoicing in the Bolognese
camp. The Council of Credenza and the General
Council (for the regular political usages were observed

THE END OF FREDERICK'S LIFE 331

in the field) assembled at the call of heralds and trum-
peters, and a vote was taken as to what should be done
with the prisoners. The question, put by direction of
the podesta, was whether or not the prisoners should
be turned over to the Commune; and the councils
voted unanimously in the affirmative. Arrangements
were then made for a triumphal entry into the city.
The bishop and all the citizens turned out to hail
the conquerors. The gonfalonieri cleared the way,
and the procession marched in military order through
the gate and up the main street. First came the
trumpeters, next a squadron of light horse, next
foot soldiers, five abreast, crowned with oak leaves,
then drummers and banner-men, after them the
carroccio decked in scarlet, the standard of Bologna
fluttering at the masthead, and round it a troop of
picked men in armour with long swords, and follow-
ing these King Enzio riding on a mule. It was a
great day for the trainband guilds of Bologna. The
other prisoners sooner or later went free ; some were
liberated at the command of the Pope, others bought
their ransom ; but, proud of having an Emperor's son
for prisoner, Bologna never let Enzio go. He lived
and died and was buried in Bologna. For twenty-
three years he was lodged in the new palace of the
podesta, in that part now occupied by the archivio
notarile (for the building has been remodelled),
whose windows look out on the Piazza di Nettuno.
He had a hall above for exercise, and chambers
below. He was treated kindly, though always under
strict supervision. One of his poems still preserves
the memory of his imprisonment : —

332 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY ,

Va, canzonetta mia,

e saluta messere,

dilli lo mal ch' i' aggio :

quelli che in' a 'n bailia,

si distretto mi tone,

ch' eo viver non poraggio.

Salutami Toscana,

quella died' e sovrana,

in cui regna tutta cortesia;

e vanne in Puglia piana,

la inagna Capitana,

la dov' e lo mio core nott' e dia.

Go, my little song

And greet my lord,

Tell him the ill I have :

He that has me in custody

Holds me so tight

That I cannot live.

Greet Tuscany for me,

A very queen is she,

In whom all courtesy reigns ;

And get thee to flat Apulia,

To great Capitanata,

There where my heart is night and day.

The Emperor tried hard to effect Enzio's release;
he begged and threatened, but in vain. The spokes-
man for Bologna, the celebrated lawyer, Roland
Passegieri, whose tomb near the church of St. Dom-
inic is one of the sights of the city, wrote back:
"Your blustering words do not frighten us; we are
not reeds of the swamp to be shaken by a puny
breeze, nor shall we dissolve like a mist in the sun's
rays. We will hold Enzio. A cane non magno scepe
tenetur aper — a little dog sometimes holds the wild
boar."

THE END OF FREDERICK'S LIFE 333

The Emperor, in spite of these misfortunes, showed
no signs of flinching. In Germany, his oldest living
son, Conrad (for Henry, the rebel, had already died),
fought the imperial pretenders whom the papal
subsidies enabled to take the field, first Henry Raspe
of Thuringia and then William, Count of Holland;
in Italy, his son, Frederick of Antioch, the imperial
lieutenant in Tuscany, and the Ghibelline chiefs,
Ezzelino da Romano, Uberto Pelavicini, and the
Marquis Lancia, maintained the war vigorously. Not-
withstanding occasional victories Frederick was in a
savage mood, and the Saracens, his most devoted
soldiers, gave it full expression. A single instance will
show their temper. They captured and took prisoner
a zealous partisan of the Pope, the Bishop of Arezzo.
They bade him publicly excommunicate the Pope,
the cardinals, and other prelates, and swear fealty to
the Emperor, and promised him if he would do this,
not only immunity but riches. Yet strengthened by
God's spirit, he answered that he had often excom-
municated Frederick as a son and pupil of Satan,
and on the spot he reiterated his anathema against
him. Then they bound him to an ass, face down by
the tail, and beat the ass in order to drive him
through the streets to the gallows. Women and
children wept at the sight, and the poor bishop sang
Te Deum laudamus; the ass — so the report of
the murder runs — would not budge, in spite of the
goad, until the bishop had finished the hymn. When
they reached the gallows a Franciscan friar shrived
him, and he confessed that, though when free he
had desired the glory of martyrdom, now the weak-

334 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

ness of the flesh made him shrink from it. He was
hanged like a common malefactor. The friars came
by night and buried his body ; the next day the Sar-
acen soldiers dug it up and hung it on high as a
warning to the Emperor's enemies.

The civil war, for such it was, though the fact
that the Emperor had Saracens, Germans, and other
foreign troops in his pay disguised its nature, con-
tinued in raids and devastations. It is hard to see
how the cities fed themselves, and still harder to
understand how they prospered, as some of them did.
There was, of course, great difference in their circum-
stances. In Padua, which had fallen into the hands of
Ezzelino da Romano, things went badly, the university
dwindled, the new church in honour of St. Anthony,
the miracle-working disciple of St. Francis, was left
barely begun ; whereas in Bologna, the guilds flour-
ished, and the friars, both the Dominicans and the
Franciscans, were able to keep busily at work build-
ing churches in honour of their respective saints.
The balances of victory did not dip very markedly
either way between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines.
Each merely succeeded in harrying the other. Fred-
erick himself, though he maintained a haughty front,
felt the effect of his misfortunes. His health was
poor; he went back to his kingdom, and there on
his death-bed (so, at least it seems) he married
Bianca Lancia, the mother of Manfred. This tardy
marriage should have made Manfred legitimate; but
the Church, either because she did not believe the
report, or because Frederick was under excommuni-
cation, would not acknowledge his legitimacy. Fred-

THE END OF FREDERICK'S LIFE 335

erick died on December 13, 1250. Manfred was
with him at the last ; and, according to Manfred's
statement, his father received the rites of the Church.
Perhaps Frederick yielded to the influence of Bianca
Lancia, perhaps he wished to pave the way for a
reconciliation of his sons with Innocent, perhaps in
physical weakness he felt an emotional yearning for
the religion of his boyhood, perhaps he had not freed
himself wholly from the beliefs of his contempo-
raries ; however that may be, it seems certain that
during his life he was a disbeliever.

His body was taken back to Sicily, as was most
fitting : from Sicily he had drawn his strength and
his weakness, his intellectual curiosity, his love of
poetry, his irascible temper, his oriental sympathies,
and his misconception of the Christian sentiment of
Europe. There, in the cathedral of Palermo, the
body, wrapped in a rich cloth which was embroid-
ered with inscriptions in the Arabic tongue, was laid
in a porphyry tomb, with crown and sword beside it,
near to the tombs of Frederick's father and mother
and of his grandfather, King Roger. So ended the
career of this remarkable man.

Frederick II was less a man ahead of his time
than out of sympathy with it. The main impulses of
the awakening world were economic, and the main
need of economic development was the need of peace
and order. An Emperor's task was to adjust the im-
perial system to these new forces. Had Frederick II
been a great man, had he been endowed with a
statesman's foresight, he would have perceived that
the communes were admirably fitted to be the

336 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

foundation stones of modern empire. The two powers,
Empire and Church, — Imperium et Sacerdotium, —
great disputants of the world's sovereignty, were
evenly matched, the Empire striving to make the
form of European civilization lay, the Church striving
to make it ecclesiastical; and here, in manufacture
and trade, were mighty secular forces, but the Em-
pire, instead of opening its arms to them and wel-
coming them as allies, hoisted the old, outworn
standard of feudalism and treated them as hostile,
leaving the shrewd Curia at Rome to profit by its
blunder.

The fault of getting into so hopelessly wrong a
situation lay with Frederick. He should have ac-
cepted the communal spirit, he should have encour-
aged the growth of trade and the development of
local self-government. His course was plain enough.
The proper imperial function was to impose order
along the high-road, over mountain pass, by river and
by canal, to lay a strong hand on robber barons, on
highwaymen and pirates, so that trade might travel
whither it would without peril and bind all parts of
the Empire together. The imperial duty towards
cities was to protect them from foreign enemies and
to sit in judgment upon their quarrels among them-
selves. It was not a proper function of Empire to
impose a centralized authority on independent cities,
to appoint their podestas, and to stamp out all
natural inclination for self-government; that was the
function of tyranny. The regulation and manage-
ment of local policy and city government constituted
an important part of the conditions upon which

THE END OF FREPERICK'S LIFE 337

trade and manufacture depended, and belonged of
right to the citizens, to merchants, manufacturers,
and artisans ; the cities never disputed their duty of
allegiance, all they insisted upon was the right of
local self-government.

Frederick laboured under a gross misconception
of empire and its functions; he looked back and not
forward; he had a just conception of order and of
the king's peace, but he wished to restore the old
regime as it had been in the golden days before
manufacture and trade dared raise their heads. So
he set out to teach the young upstarts their place.
And not only did he fail to understand the new
spirit abroad in the valley of the Po, but he was
equally blind to the power of the Church ; he mis-
managed the whole affair to such an extent that he
drove these two separate bodies, which had no na-
tural sympathy for one another, to make common
cause against him. And so, his talents, capacities,
and accomplishments wasted, he brought ruin upon
his house.

CHAPTER XXIV

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY

Sorgono e in agili file dilungano
gl' immani ed ardui steli mariuorei,
e ne la tenebra sacra somigliano
di giganti un esercito

che guerra mediti con 1' in visibile :
le arcate salgono chete, si slanciano
quindi a vol rapide, poi si rabbracciano
prone per 1' alto e pendule.

CAKDUCCL

In quick succession rise and march
The huge steep marble pillars,
And in the sacred darkness seem
A band of giants

That meditate war upon the invisible :
The noiseless arches leap, dart hence
In rapid flight, then meet and kiss
Prone by the roof and pendulous.

Now that Frederick — versipellis, vipera, turncoat
and viper, as he appeared to the Roman Curia, or
stupor mundi, wonder of the world, as he was to the
enemies of the Curia — has left the stage, politics may
again withdraw for a time and give place to other
threads that do their part, also, in weaving the pat-
tern of history. And as the approaching fall of the
Hohenstauf ens now heralds the coming of the French,
it is interesting to remark how for two generations
and more events, that in themselves seem very re-
mote from the shock of battle, have been gradually
preparing the way for the substitution of France in

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 339

place of Germany as the foreign nation of control-
ling influence in Italy.

For several hundred years, ever since the days of
Otto the Great, Germany, of all foreign countries,
had exercised the greatest influence on Italy. This
was the necessary result of their political union.
The Emperors, their lieutenants and imperial func-
tionaries, brought with them the feudal system and
its attendant usages; the soldiers of fortune and
gentlemen adventurers, who followed their masters
across the Alps and settled on territories given to
them or conquered by their own swords, introduced
German ways and habits of thought. Most of these
immigrants, indeed, such as the Ezzelini of the
March, or the Uberti of Florence, in the course of a
few generations became Italians ; but in the process
they modified the society about them, and kept
their aristocratic blood and aristocratic customs as
distinct from the Italian bourgeoisie as possible.
Under Henry VI fresh swarms of needy Germans
settled in southern Italy and established themselves
in stronghold and castle as the feudal nobility.
In fact, including the earlier Lombard stock, the
aristocracy of Italy, outside of Rome, was almost
altogether of Teutonic descent.

In Sicily and the extremity of Italy other in-
fluences had been far stronger than that of Ger-
many; the Byzantine Greeks, the Arabs, and the
Normans had each in turn remodelled the country,
but they did not go north of the river Garigliano.
Venice, too, had been moulded and shaped by the
civilization of Constantinople, but Venice can hardly

340 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

be deemed an integral part of Italy before the be-
ginning of the fourteenth century. As a whole,
Italy had been seriously affected only by Ger-
many.

But this influence was not the natural sympa-
thetic influence of vigorous minds and characters
upon minds and characters of the same or a similar
kind. On the contrary, it was an influence derived
wholly or almost wholly from the unnatural political
union between two very dissimilar nations. This
union between the two had been imposed on both
by a long course of events; and they were a singu-
larly ill-mated pair. The two peoples were different
in character, temperament, taste, and habits. The
Germans were a fighting people and despised the
Italians, and the Italians, who were more refined,
more subtle, more delicate than the Germans, hated
them in return. The bond, however, was too strong
to be broken by Italy alone, and Italy, even if she
had been strong enough, was far from prepared for
so revolutionary a project as the dissolution of the
Empire. Nevertheless some Italians coquetted with
the idea of playing off a rival against their master,
and naturally turned to their neighbour to the north-
west. In the days of Pippin and Charlemagne, when
the Lombards were persecuting the Church, the
Popes had called in the Franks; at the beginning
of the century Innocent III called in a French
baron, Walter of Brienne, to fight the German ad-
venturers in Apulia; and, two generations later, In-
nocent's successors acted upon these precedents with
sonorous effect. From that time on down to 1870,

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 341

French interference was one of the controlling fac-
tors in Italian politics. But politics was not the only
tie between Italy and France.

French civilization had already made its mark on
Italy. For fifty years the poetry of Provence, as we
have seen, had been a bond of union between the
two countries. Troubadours had sung their Proven-
gal verses from Verona to Palermo ; and Italian imi-
tators had crossed the Alps to attend upon the
princes and ladies of Languedoc and Dauphiny.
Other influences, less outwardly charming but more
pervasive, were the various heresies that went to and
fro, like moles working underground, joining to-
gether the Patarini of Milan, the Poor Men of
Lyons, and their fellow sects in one common hos-
tility to orthodoxy. Merchants, too, like Peter Ber-
nadone, St. Francis's father, travelled habitually to
France, and money-lenders from Asti and Vercelli
plied their trade in rivalry with the usurers of Cahors.
There was every reason for intimacy. The two were
Latin peoples; their sister languages had not di-
verged very far from the parent tongue; close ties,
whether of politics, commerce or literature, had ex-
isted from the time when the Romans made the
southeastern corner of Gaul Provincia Nostra. If
any foreign influence was to be dominant in Italy,
it would be natural to suppose that it should be
French rather than German. And now, at the close
of the twelfth century, a fresh intermediary, quite
different from politics, from classical memories, or
poetical association, wrought a new link between
France and Italy. The monks of Citeaux crossed

342 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

the Alps and descended from Burgundy into Italy,
bringing Gothic architecture with them.

It seems odd, if one looks at the old Lombard
churches in North Italy, that the Lombard archi-
tects did not devise a Gothic system of construction
for themselves They had long used grouped piers,
groined vaults, and transverse arches; they divided
nave and aisles into bays; they constructed their
vaulting with ribs; they built heavy buttresses to
support the weight of the upper walls and roof.
Time out of mind they had employed pointed
arches to strengthen the foundation of their towers.
But they did not take the necessary steps that en«
abled the architects of the Ile-de-France to develop
the system of thrust and buttress by which piers and
ribs uphold a mountain of stone. The genius of Italy
never fully accepted, and certainly never mastered,
the principles of Gothic architecture. There was
reason for this. The authority of ancient Rome, still
visible in many a majestic edifice, laid the heavy
hand of its mighty tradition upon architect and
builder. The great basilicas of Rome, the Byzantine
churches at Ravenna, the Norman monuments at
Palermo, the cathedral at Pisa, Sant' Ambrogio at
Milan, San Michele at Pavia, San Zeno at Verona,
San Marco at Venice, and the Romanesque churches
in the cities of Emilia, had trained the Italian eye
to the beauties of rounded arch and horizontal line,
to calm, to tranquillity, to self-possession. But in
the pause between the Romanesque schools of Lom-
bardy, Tuscany, and Sicily and the birth of the Re-
naissance, in the two intervening centuries, from

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 343

1200 to 1400, a poor, shivering, inadequate Gothic
established itself almost all over Italy. The Cistercian
monks, men attached to what was familiar and sacred
to them at home in Burgundy, brought with them
into Italy their method of building churches, just as
they brought the rule of their Order and their frock.
The monastery of Citeaux was founded about 1100
in what was the old province of Burgundy. This
new Order was the expression of discontent with the
conditions in existing monasteries, where St. Bene-
dict's rule was no longer strictly observed; it re-
turned to the primitive idea of monastic life and
renounced the more worldly ways that marked the
rich abbeys of Cluny. Its aspirations woke echoes
of sympathy everywhere ; it prospered and multiplied ;
it sent forth colonies, daughters as it loved to call
them ; and they, in their turn, sent out many daugh-
ters far and wide, east, south, and north. Of all the
colonies that went forth from Citeaux, that of Clair-
vaux, founded by St. Bernard in 1115, was the best
known and had the greatest influence. St. Bernard
dominated the Church during the middle of the
twelfth century, and the immense success of the
Order was due to his world- wide renown. The first
Cistercian monastery outside France was established
in the northwest of Italy, not very far from Genoa ;
others soon followed, and St. Bernard himself founded
that of Chiaravalle (Clear Valley) a few miles from
Milan. Within two hundred years there were some
fourscore Cistercian monasteries in Italy ; and from
the very beginning there was much coming and
going between the Italian monasteries and the

344 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

mother abbeys at Citeaux and Clairvaux, more espe-
cially as the Cistercian monks were very loyal to the
Papacy.

Before the beginning of the thirteenth century
the Italian houses of the Order had been recognized
by the Papacy as bodies to be encouraged and
cherished. The Popes were glad to have such faithful
servants near at hand, and by papal influence various
troops of Cistercian monks were lodged in aban-
doned or half -abandoned monasteries on the borders
of St. Peter's Patrimony. Some of these monasteries,
were in ruins and had to be rebuilt. Such was that
at Fossanova, which is about seventy miles south-
east of Rome, not far from the town of Piperno; the
rebuilding took about twenty years, and the church
was consecrated by Innocent III in 1208. Already
before this time the great architecture of the Ile-de-
France, which was carrying all before it in the
north, had affected the Burgundian style ; and the
Cistercian architects were touched with its spirit. It
was one thing, however, to build a Gothic church in
northern France, or even in Burgundy, and another
to build a Gothic church south of Rome. Neverthe-
less the interior of the church at Fossanova, with its
lancet windows, its ogival arches, its vaulting, and
its clustered piers from which the ribs run up, shows
at a glance the familiar Gothic forms. The outside
makes a feeble pretence, with some buttresses and
gables, to support the effect of the interior ; but the
chapter house both in its plan and in detail is pure
French Gothic. Another Cistercian monastery, at
Casamari (so called because the villa of Marius had

GOTHIC AKCHITECTUKE IN ITALY 345

once stood there), barely twenty miles north of Fos-
sanova, was founded by Innocent III, and conse-
crated by Honorius III in 1217. The church there,
with its pointed arches, its clustered columns, its
vaulted bays groined and ribbed, is in the interior to
all appearance a Gothic church. As early, or perhaps
earlier than either of these churches, is Santa Maria
a Fiume, a Gothic church in Ceccano, a little hillside
town near by. But it is necessary to keep repeating
that the Gothic architecture in Italy is merely Gothic
to the careless eye ; it has little or none of the or-
ganic structure of the true Gothic style ; it is an
affair of decoration, of finish, of hypocritical con-
formity, and fundamentally has but very slight and
casual relations with the scientific construction of
the Gothic builders.

The monks of Casamari in 1208 founded the
abbey of Santa Maria d'Arbona, which is across
the Apennines, in the Abruzzi, near Chieti. Farther
north in the Marches, near Ancona, is a second
Chiaravalle, with a church also in the Gothic style,
and near Siena the monastery of San Galgano. These
Cistercian monasteries set the fashion for church
building in their neighbourhoods ; perhaps they
provided the architects. And churches, little and
big, showed, in pier, vault, gable, and arch, the
pervading influence of the Northern architecture.

In the north the first church that shows Gothic
forms is Sant' Andrea at Vercelli, a small town near
the border of Lombardy and Piedmont, midway be-
tween Milan and Turin, on the road towards the
Mont Cenis Pass. One story is that its founder,

346 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Cardinal Guala Bicchieri of Vercelli, a famous dip-
lomat who had been sent by Innocent III to France
on the matter of King Philip's divorce, and to Eng-
land to crown King Henry III, brought an architect
back with him from England ; another, that he went
to the canons of the monastery of St. Victor at Paris
and asked them to help him. A third theory de-
clares that the design is merely a natural outgrowth
of the Lombard Romanesque. However that may be,
the first abbot was a Frenchman, Tommaso Gallo,
"cunctis in artibus peritus" and it may be .that
he ordered the plans and had a finger in them him-
self. The fagade, except for the two slim towers,
has the barn front, the single gable, the blind arcade,
the round arched doors, the pilasters, that charac-
terize the Lombard churches ; but the choir is very
like that of the cathedral of Laon, the interior is
Gothic, and there are flying buttresses. At best,
Sant' Andrea, though related to the great cathedrals
of the North, is a very poor relation ; and it is only
fair to remember that at the time it was built the
cathedrals of Paris, Rheims, and Amiens were all
unfinished.

So far the Gothic style was virtually limited to
Cistercian churches and chapter houses, and to such
parish churches as were near enough to succumb
to their prestige. But after St. Francis's death, his
Order, which had supplanted the Cistercian Order in
popularity and importance, also adopted, in the timid
Italian way, the Gothic style as the accepted monas-
tic ecclesiastical architecture. The first Franciscan
church was built at Assisi and marks the first great

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 347

ecclesiastical step which the young Order took.
Francis had entertained the same ideas on the sim-
plicity becoming a house of prayer that the founders
of the Cistercian Order had had, only he pushed his
ideas further still. The early Cistercians made
scanty concessions to the human taste for beauty in
architecture; but Francis wanted no concession at
all. All his life he denounced show, worldliness,
vanity, and whatever could betray the worshipping
spirit into a momentary infidelity of inattention.
Bare walls, a bare floor, a bare altar, and the ineffa-
ble presence of God flooding His house, were what
Francis demanded. Nevertheless, out from the hill
at Assisi, stands the mighty Franciscan monument,
one great mass — churches, campanile, monastery,
and supporting masonry — in bold defiance of diffi-
culty and danger and of the creed of the saint in
whose honour they were built.

That the new Order dedicated to holy poverty /
should become the great Gothic builder in Italy
shows how quickly the waters of the spirit had flowed
down from their mountain height to the level plain
of common men. Indeed, a great change had come
over the Order. While it consisted of Francis,
Brother Leo, Brother Angelo, Brother Rufino,
Brother Bernard, and their fellows, the little band
was animated solely by the spirit of love and wor-
ship ; but when high and low came trooping in to
take the vows, the spirit of vanity, pride, luxury,
and ostentation entered also. Two men are mainly
responsible for the rapid triumph of the spirit of the
world, yet both were loving and admiring friends of

348 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Francis, Gregory IX and Brother Elias. The Pope
was a good man, religious, ascetic even, but he was
absorbed in his ecclesiastical empire and its affairs;
to him the Order had become an instrument to be
used to maintain and extend the power of his em-
pire. Brother Elias was a man of somewhat similar
character ; energetic, masterful, capable, confident in
himself, he was sure that he knew what would be
best for the Order. To him Francis was utterly un-
practical, a visionary, a saint; and regardless of
Francis's ideas and wishes, he determined to build a
monument that should do honour to the memory of
the saint and worthily represent the power and influ-
ence of the Franciscan body. He had been made
vicar-general of the Order during Francis's lifetime,
and though after Francis's death another brother
was elected minister-general, nevertheless he contin-
ued to act as the Pope's lieutenant and to govern
affairs at Assisi. Elias was in charge of the build-
ing at the time of making the plans and during the
first ten years of construction.

Francis died on October 3, 1226. On July 16,
1228, the Pope canonized him ; and the very next
day laid the corner-stone of the new basilica. The
architect is unknown. Vasari states that a German,
one Jacob of Meran, was the original architect, but
Vasari's narrative is confused and highly improb-
able; besides, there is no trace of German architec-
ture in the building. Herr Henry Thode has made
an excellent argument to prove that Jacob of Meran
is a mythical person. Filippo di Campello, mentioned
in connection with the church in 1232 and 1253,

GOTHIC ARCHITECTUKE IN ITALY 349

has been thought to be the architect, but the notices
are not definite, and the church of Santa Chiara at
Assisi, which he built afterwards, is so vastly infe-
rior that it is difficult to believe that he could have
designed the great basilica. Another name suggested
is that of Brother John of Penna, but there is little
to support this theory. Others, drawing their infer-
ence from the Gothic elements in the upper church,
think that there must have been a French architect.
The question is not very important, because the
construction of this noble edifice, with whatever
praise or blame attaches to it, is due to the energy
and ability of Brother Elias.

The basilica of St. Francis consists of two churches,
one built over the other. The land falls away so
rapidly that while the eastern door of the upper
church opens on the terrace above, the south door
of the lower church opens on a lower level. The
reasons for the double church are tolerably clear.
First, the plot of land was given, a site which offered
an incomparable opportunity for a bold builder like
Elias; and the steepness of the hill rendered neces-
sary either a large crypt or a lower church. Second,
a double church had a special significance. The mon-
astery of Sacro Speco, at Subiaco, built in honour
of St. Benedict, the founder of the whole monastic
system of the West, had two churches, one above
the other. To follow that same plan would proclaim
a happy parallel between St. Francis, the founder
of a new great order, and his illustrious predecessor.
The cathedral at Anagni, also, had a crypt so large
as virtually to be a lower church ; and Pope Gregory,

350 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

a native of Anagni, who took the keenest interest
in the new basilica, may have insisted upon follow-
ing this precedent, especially as such a plan met the
needs of the site.

The lower church is dark, solemn, and majestic ;
its vaults, austerely noble, even beautiful, impose si-
lence and reverence. Its architecture, except where
later bays and chapels have been added, is pure
Lombard Romanesque. In the upper church, on the
contrary, the nave lifts exultingly its pointed vault-
ing; shafts, ribs, windows, and, more than all, the
apse, proclaim the triumph of the Northern ideas
of ecclesiastical architecture. The exterior of the
building has little of the Gothic about it, and the
campanile is wholly in the Lombard style. The
church is, in truth, far more Italian than French,
and yet the French element is there, so that perhaps
the most appropriate word to describe its architec-
ture, one that asserts its Italian spirit, yet does not
forget its relation with France, and at the same time
serves to distinguish it from the Cistercian Gothic
which preceded it, is Franciscan.

The bold position of the church, its noble unity,
its harmonious combination of certain minor Gothic
attributes with the fundamental character of Lom-
bard construction, its beauty, and its dignity, make
it most impressive. Time has expiated Brother Elias's
infidelity to Francis's memory, and we may be per-
mitted to be unreservedly grateful to that stirring
spirit for erecting a monument which has helped
perpetuate the name of the saint. It will not let
his own name pass unremembered.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 351

The Franciscan churches certainly followed the
lead of the Cistercian churches. They exhibit vari-
ous points of resemblance, just as the ideas and
practice of the Franciscans resembled in certain
matters the ideas and practice of the Cistercians.
And there was perhaps some other obscure influence
at work in favour of the Northern fashion of con-
struction ; for the primitive churches which Francis,
in the first passion of his conversion, rebuilt with
his own hands, have the pointed vault. This may
have been due to the general French prestige that
radiated from the civilization of Provence, or, in-
deed, to some Cistercian monks, or even to the chance
presence of some Cistercian builder, for it is hard to
suppose that Francis had an intuitive capacity to
build in a strange style.

The basilica itself owes its noble effect to the dar-
ing use of a difficult situation, and could serve as
model but to few churches. The main current of
Franciscan architecture adopted a different system;
in fact, it divided into two styles, of which one pre-
vailed in Tuscany and Umbria, and the other in the
northern part of Italy. The former, truer to Francis's
idea of poverty, aimed at the simplest and most
economical form of church. These churches were
simple oblong buildings with wooden roofs : their
transepts, which projected more or less, resembled the
top bar of the letter T; the apse, which was barely
more than a chapel, was vaulted, and on each side
of it, to right and left, lesser chapels opened on the
transepts like little booths ranged on one side of a
street. Such was the type of the church which

352 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Brother Elias built at Cortona, as well as of those
at Prato, Volterra, Pistoia, Pescia, Pisa, and Siena,
and also of various Dominican churches in the same
region.

In almost every city and town in Italy both
orders began to build; both built in rivalry, and
both followed the same general architectural designs.
This Tuscan-Umbrian style attained its best in the
church of Santa Croce at Florence, which Arnolfo
di Cambio, the great Florentine architect, began in
1294. The vast size of the church, which is near
four hundred feet long, the plain, flat wooden roof
over the central nave, and the stern simple pillars,
express dignity and solemnity. The huge space is so
obviously due to the mere desire to provide room for
a worshipping throng and not to any vainglory, and
the quiet space and noble amplitude are so soberly
adapted to induce peace, contemplation, and prayer,
that the ideal of St. Francis suffers less here, in his
largest church, than in many another. Santa Croce
is commonly called a Gothic church, but the adjec-
tive has strayed far from the meaning it bears in
France or England ; this Franciscan Gothic has a
vault over the apse, a gable at the end, some pointed
arches, a few Northern decorations, and no more,
to entitle it to the name. Indeed, the main body
of Santa Croce follows the traditional form of the
Roman basilica.

In North Italy all the cities built churches to St.
Francis and to St. Dominic. In among the trading
guilds and brawling nobles, as early as 1220, the
monks, barefoot, frocked, and corded, went about

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 353

founding missions and making proselytes. At first
the Franciscans built little chapels or accepted bor-
rowed churches ; then, as the Order grew, they built
new churches of their own. In general trend this
architecture follows the Cistercian model and pre-
serves in one way or another certain characteristics
of the Gothic style, but some Franciscan churches
struggled for simplicity and followed a sort of mod-
ified basilican type/* One of the first cities to build
a great church to St. Francis was Bologna. St.
Francis had been in Bologna more than once ; there,
in the piazza before the palace of the Commune,
" shabbily dressed, mean in station, ugly of face,"
but shining in the glory of his enthusiasm, he had
preached a notable sermon on angels, men, and
demons. His disciples went to Bologna in the very
beginning of the movement, and built a monastery
larger than the parent model at the Portiuncula;
they even dared to name a cell in which Francis had
slept, "Francis's cell," as if he had had a place
which he called his own. When Francis heard of it,
in great indignation he ordered the brethren out and
forbade them to live in such " sumptuous palaces."
The second experiment in establishing a house for
the friars was more successful. A short distance out
of the town, Brother Bernard of Quintavalle, the
earliest disciple, took up his abode in a little monas-
tery beside a little church that had been given to
him and his brethren, and there he lived for twenty-
five years ; but now that all of Bologna, not devoted
to St. Dominic, was devoted to St. Francis, this
church was both too little and too inconvenient for

354 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

the citizens and students. The Commune gave a new
site hard by the city, just outside the walls, opposite
the western gate, Porta Stieri.

The new church, built of brick, was begun in
1236, and Innocent IV consecrated the high altar on
his return from Lyons, although the roof had not
been finished ; in 1263, thanks to an annual con-
tribution from the Commune, the whole edifice was
completed. The architect was from Brescia, Marco
by name ; and the church is not Italian, but French.
Marco da Brescia followed the models of the famous
Cistercian churches at Clairvaux and Pontigny, and
he went beyond them in real Gothic construction.
Nave and aisles, pillared and vaulted, carving within
and flying buttress without, follow the usual Gothic
style ; and the choir has round it, in the fashion
specially characteristic of northern France, a half-
circle of radiating chapels. The church, which has
undergone the most degrading vicissitudes of for-
tune, gives little of the feeling of noble simplicity
which it must have had in its first youth ; on the
contrary, it leaves the impression of having suc-
cumbed to the misadventures of life, and presents a
bald, dull, dejected appearance to the visitor.

After the church was erected the usual buildings
gradually grew up beside it, a monastery, an hostelry
for strangers, an infirmary, a cloister; and close
by these buildings, all enclosed in the monastery
wall, were the courts, the garden with its fruit trees
and cypresses, the graveyard with its graves. Here
many of the great jurists of the University were
buried, sometimes in stately tombs raised high on

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 355

columns and canopied after the Gothic fashion.
There lay the bones of the learned Accursius, the
great interpreter of Roman law, and in the same
tomb was buried his son, Francesco. Hard by Odo-
f redo was buried ; and close beyond Odof redo's tomb
lies that of Rolandino dei Romanzi, author of the
first treatise on criminal law, De origine malefici-
orum. Doctor Rolandino Passegieri, the spirited
statesman, who in the name of the Commune of
Bologna answered the Emperor's threats and refused
to set Enzio free, belonged to the third order of St.
Dominic, and his bones were buried in a canopied
tomb near St. Dominic's church. These tombs are
now in the heart of the city, for patriotism taking
the fragments that remain, has reconstructed the
old memorials and set them among the famous sights
of Bologna.

On the whole, the Cistercian French tradition
.made itself felt in all important ecclesiastical archi-
tecture of the thirteenth century ; and yet the Fran-
ciscan churches share the charming characteristic of
almost all Italian architecture, a self-indulgence in
personal taste and a sacrifice of principle to caprice.
They prefer to carry out the idea of the moment
rather than the rules of orthodox practice. The
Franciscan church erected at Padua in honour of
St. Anthony is immoderately eclectic; it takes its
choir from the French style and its cupolas from St.
Mark's at Venice. But its irregular aspect is perhaps
due to the various periods of its construction. Begun
shortly after St. Anthony's canonization in 1232, it
was soon interrupted by the wars of the ferocious

356 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Ezzelino, and afterwards straggled on through cent-
uries. Perhaps the fantastic influence which the saint
exercised on the popular imagination also touched
the architects.

This ardent young Portuguese, after having spent
eight years over his books of theology, was suddenly
aroused by the news of the martyrdom of some
Franciscan friars in Morocco ; profoundly moved,
he travelled to Assisi, and there he underwent the
usual experience of those who listened to Francis
preach the love of Jesus. He abandoned theology
and the world. But the new spirit in the Franciscan
Order, fanned by Gregory, then Cardinal Ugolino,
and Brother Elias, was flaring up ; men of theologi-
cal learning were necessary for the new purposes of
the Order. Anthony's genius for oratory was dis-
covered, and he was sent about from city to city
preaching peace, excepting in the south of France
where his religion obliged him to hammer the here-
tics. In this respect Anthony is the great link be-
tween the Dominicans and the Franciscans. For a
time he was a reader at the University of Bologna ;
but preaching was his vocation. At last he settled
in Padua, where old Salinguerra was lording it, and
there after two years he died. Miracles immediately
proved his sanctity, and later, as years we.nt by,
more and more marvellous stories clustered about
his memory until legend, which in the stories about
St. Francis is refined and delicate, passed into a
degenerate baroque, and lost all human lineaments.
If St. Anthony's legend, however, does not explain
the wayward, fantastic, architecture of his church,

Anderson, phot

CHURCH OF SANT' ANTONIO

Padua

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ITALY 357

his career helps justify the ecclesiastical exploitation
of the Franciscan movement. The extraordinary
emotional effects of his preaching before enormous
crowds was the ecclesiastical answer to the Ghibel-
line allegation that only the authority of the Empire
could establish peace and maintain order. The
Church, through Anthony and other friars both
Franciscan and Dominican, said, in effect : we ap-
peal for order to a higher principle, we ask for a
more secure and a nobler basis for social regenera-
tion, we call upon men to obey God and to love one
another ; then, and not till then, will peace flourish
in Italy.

Both orders of mendicant friars most successfully
appealed to the emotions, and the results are appar-
ent to this day in the numberless churches that
sprang up everywhere. The most important church
that followed those at Bologna and Padua before
the end of the century is the Dominican church of
Santa Maria Novella at Florence. In Milan a large
Franciscan church was built which no longer exists.
Everywhere the mendicant orders preserved the
great French monastic traditions of church building.
Even at Rome, in the very presence of the mighty
basilicas, the pointed arches and the dark solemn
vaults of Santa Maria sopra Minerva show how
firmly the Dominican monks held their architectural
faith.

In this way, throughout the greater part of Italy,
the monastic churches, by their deferential accept-
ance of the architectural ideas of Burgundy and the
Ile-de-France, indicate how the deeper social forces

358 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

•were gradually preparing the way for French policy
to play its decisive part. The pointed arches of the
Cistercian monks, like the songs of the troubadours
and the heresies of the Cathari, lead to the battlefields
of Benevento and Tagliacozzo, to the French ten-
ancy of St. Peter's chair, to the outrage at Anagni,
and to the Babylonish captivity at Avignon.

CHAPTER XXV

THE PROGRESS OF THE FRANCISCAN ORDER (1226-1247)

O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments ! Then had thy peace
been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea. — Isaiah
XLVHI, 18.

THE course of pointed architecture from the Cister-
cian monasteries at Fossanova and Casamari to the
basilica at Assisi and the Franciscan churches in
Bologna, Florence, Rome, and elsewhere, is interest-
ing as a movement in architecture, a foreign inva-
sion; but its significance is as the outward em-
bodiment of the great unrest in religious life, the
discontent of the human heart with what it had and a
desire for something new and strange ; and the very in-
congruity between the Italian and the Gothic elements
seems to typify a fundamental discord. The amaz-
ing vigour of the two new orders — for the Domin-
icans pressed hard on the heels of the Franciscans
in public favour — is proved by many things besides
the churches, which, big and little, rose up in city,
town, and village; and this vigour bears pathetic
testimony to a widespread desire for peace, for calm,
for security, for freedom to live in amity with the
people of the next city and with one's own neigh-
bours shut in by the same walls. But one head, one
organization, one rule, cannot compel unity of spirit.
Many joined the orders from a love of religion or
from some other strong emotional impulse, but many

360 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

more from mixed motives. In fact, it became almost
the fashion to belong to the third order in one of
these two fraternities. The consequences of rapid
growth were disastrous, at least to the Franciscan
Order. Differences were emphasized, contrary be-
liefs were magnified, dissension prospered, and the
two parties, the worldly-wise and the zealots, the
right and the extreme left, as we should say, became
more and more estranged.

St. Francis had recognized the need of greater
worldly wisdom than he himself possessed in the
government of the Order, and several years before
his death had entrusted Brother Elias with the du-
ties of minister-general ; and Brother Elias acted as
minister until the general chapter held in the spring
of the year following Francis's death. By that time
the zealots had begun to express their dissatisfaction
and to organize a political campaign against the
worldly-wise. Perhaps it was then that Brother Leo
wrote his recollections of St. Francis, now called
Speculum Perfectionis, for in some respects the
book seems to be a partisan tract written to expose
the contrast between the ideals of the saint and the
ideals of Elias. At any rate the brethren who were
of the same way of thinking as Leo were strong
enough to defeat Elias and to elect their candidate
for minister-general, John Parenti, a man, however,
of no great force of character.

The defeated party did not rest idle. Gregory IX
was behind them, and at his request, one of the
brothers, Thomas of Celano, a man of literary edu-
cation, composed a biography of St. Francis, which

PROGRESS OF THE FRANCISCAN ORDER 361

may be considered a sort of official biography, writ-
ten, but by no means unworthily, from a point of
view favourable to the worldly-wise party. The new
life displayed a strong bias towards Brother Elias ;
for instance, according to Thomas of Celano, St.
Francis gave his special blessing to Brother Elias,
while according to Leo's biography he gave his special
blessing to Brother Bernard of Quintavalle, the first
disciple and one of the zealots. The success of this
book, as well as the Pope's support, and the general
feeling that executive talents of a high order, such
as Elias notoriously possessed, should not lie unused,
kept Brother Elias in his office as head of the works
at Assisi, and at the chapter of 1232 caused his elec-
tion as minister-general.

Elias was a very gifted man. If one were to pro-
long the parallel between the stories of St. Francis
and of Christ, which the Franciscans have always
loved to draw, one might almost compare the role
of Elias to that of St. Paul, so powerfully did he
influence the Order during a few years, and so in-
sistent was he on missions to foreign lands. Elias
was born hard by Assisi, his mother's city. His father
came from near Bologna. In early manhood Elias
earned his living as a mattress-maker, and then as a
schoolmaster. He was eager to get a good education,
and managed to go to Bologna, where he obtained
the post of scriptor, a special officer charged appar-
ently with certain duties of a notary or of a reader.
He acquired a reputation for learning; even his
enemies admitted his knowledge, which the zealots
no doubt regarded as one sin the more.

362 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

The election of Elias marked the complete triumph
of the worldly-wise and the discomfiture of the
spiritual-minded. -The only element in his policy
which received the approbation of the whole Order
was that he supported and advocated foreign mis-
sions with all the native energy of his character. Dur-
ing his administration the doctrine of poverty was
radically changed, or rather it was thrown overboard.
The Order not only accepted property, but begged
for it. The legal distinction between the ownership
of land and the use of land, by which the technical
property of land is vested in a trustee and all the
beneficial use of it in the cestui que trusty was em-
ployed to evade the fundamental principle of the
Order. Gregory IX sanctioned this device, and In-
nocent IV confirmed it. The title to land was taken
in the name of the Pope, and the brethren occupied
the land and acted in every respect as owners except
in accepting the name of property-owners. The same
contrivance was resorted to for personal property.
The title was taken in the name of some trustee, who
was declared by papal edict responsible to the Order.
In this way a veil was thrown over the violated vow.

The rule also was remodelled in the interest of the
world and of the Church, and the passionate testament
of the founder was left to be cherished by the scanty
band who persisted obstinately in their belief that it is
possible to realize a kingdom of heaven on earth. The
little chapel of the Portiuncula was no longer suffered
to retain the name given it by St. Francis, Caput et
Mater Ordinis; that title was taken from it and be-
stowed upon the great, new basilica rapidly building

PROGRESS OF THE FRANCISCAN ORDER 363

under the energetic control of the minister-general.
It would be unjust to think either Pope Gregory or
Brother Elias indifferent to Francis's memory ; they
could not act otherwise than they did because they
entertained an unshakable belief in the impractica-
bility of Francis's ideas. Besides this, the Pope could
not have been blind to the very great importance of
the wandering friars in his struggle with the Emperor.
Not only in Italy, but also through all Christendom,
the friars pleaded and preached the papal cause ; and
the most capable and distinguished members of the
Order, Brother Elias, Brother Anthony, — St. An-
thony of Padua, as he is now called, — and John
Parenti, who for a short time was the minister-gen-
eral, were employed on political errands.

The zealots did not accept with meekness the tri-
umph of the worldly-wise. A little incident shows
the temper on both sides. At the beginning of the
work upon the basilica, Elias put up a marble box in
a conspicuous place for public offerings ; Leo, scan-
dalized and indignant, broke it, and Elias had Leo
beaten. Feeling ran high. The zealots endured as
best they could several years of Elias's administra-
tion, and then the most fervent disciples of the
Franciscan ideal — Leo, Angelo, Masseo, Caesar of
Spires — disregarded his authority and agitated
openly against him. Things came to such a pass
that Elias asked for special authority to punish
them, and the Pope granted his request. Caesar of
Spires was put in prison ; and his gaoler, mistaking
or pretending to mistake his stepping out of doors
for an attempt to escape^ struck him with a club and

364 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

killed him. Elias put others also in prison, some he
unfrocked, and some, under pretence of missionary
work, he exiled. But at last the tide turned ; different
motives affected different men, and there were so
many motives at work that a majority of those who
had a right to attend a chapter-general ranged
themselves in opposition. The clerks, jealous of their
clerical prerogatives, were offended because Elias
admitted laymen to the Order and, more offended,
because he appointed them to important posts as
readily as he did clerks. Others were displeased by
his overbearing manners or his neglect of the com-
mon conventionalities of monastic life; for Elias
lived in comfort and in luxury, he had pages to wait
upon him, he went about on horseback and never
on foot, he neglected to make his ministerial rounds
from monastery to monastery, he dined alone, and
kept one brother, with a special gift for cooking, as
chief cook. But more than other faults, his arbitrary
conduct irritated the brothers.

Under Elias the Order was not a fraternal, demo-
cratic body, but a monarchy, in which Elias's single
will was law. He did not convoke the chapters-gen-
eral ; he appointed and removed provincial ministers
at his good pleasure ; and he was always demanding
money for the basilica. Some suspected that the
moneys contributed were ill-used ; others, who would
not go so far as to entertain that evil suspicion,
thought that without gifts a petitioner got no hear-
ing. Others gossiped that Elias meddled with al-
chemy. But of all the measures and doings that
brought him unpopularity, one in chief caused his

PKOGEESS OF THE FRANCISCAN ORDER 365

fall. This was his system of visitors. He appointed
a set of officials for each province to go about and
inspect the monasteries. These visitors sometimes
stayed for weeks at a monastery; they heard com-
plaints, changed regulations, and made a report to
Elias. Naturally the heads of the monastic houses
got angry, and were quite ready to join the oppo-
sition to the minister-general. The ministers across
the Alps were especially hostile.

A chapter-general was held in Rome in May, 1239 ;
and charges against the minister-general were laid
before the Pope himself. The leader of the malcon-
tents was Brother Aymon, an Englishman, professor
at the University of Paris; a strong majority sup-
ported him. The moment was critical for the Papacy;
the desperate struggle with the House of Hohen-
staufen had begun, not two months before the Pope
had excommunicated the Emperor, and he could not
afford to disregard the will of an angry majority.
Besides, Elias had been a somewhat lukewarm par-
tisan of the Papacy, he was even on friendly terms
with Frederick. Whatever force, much or little, was
to be given to the charges against Elias, Pope Greg-
ory, under the pressure of political exigency, could
come to but one conclusion. He stated that " he had
put in Elias as minister-general because he thought
the whole Order wanted him, and now that Elias
displeased them, he relieved him of his charge."
The Pope's statement shows how complete was the
papal control over the Order.

That the fall of Elias was not due in the main to
the zealots, but to the opponents of autocratic rule,

366 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

appears from the fact that the new minister-general
Albert of Pisa ( 1239-1240), and his immediate suc-
cessors, Aymon, chief of the malcontents (1240-
1244), and Crescentius of Jesi (1244-1247), all
belonged to the practical party, and that under In-
nocent IV the rule was not stiffened, but on the
contrary still further relaxed. Nevertheless the true
disciples of St. Francis continued to struggle, and
in the end their time came. In 1247 they elected
Brother John of Parma minister-general.

Elias, after his deposition, retired to Cortona, on
the southern borders of Tuscany, where he founded
another church in honour of the saint whom he loved
in his own way ; but he quarrelled still further with
the brothers opposed to him, and in fear or anger
or hope of revenge, fled to the Emperor Frederick,
who had always liked him, finding something sym-
pathetic perhaps in his energetic and authoritative
character. The Emperor received him warmly, and
employed him on a diplomatic mission of importance.
To consort with a man under the ban of the Church
was an act of ecclesiastical rebellion, and Gregory ex-
communicated him as a renegade. Nevertheless Elias
still had faithful partisans, and after the election of
Innocent IV to the Papacy, a movement was set on
foot to reinstate him in the Order. John of Parma,
a noble and generous person, begged him to come
back, but in vain. He was recalcitrant, and his
enemies were unforgiving. He died in 1253 in
enmity to the Order, but reconciled to the Church.
At his last communion he asked to hear the peni-
tential psalms, and after hearing them exclaimed,

PROGRESS OF THE FRANCISCAN ORDER 367

"God have mercy upon me, for I am a sinner." One
month later, on May 25, Innocent IV consecrated
the Upper Church of Assisi, the great memorial to
Brother Elias as well as to St. Francis.

John of Parma, the new minister-general elected
in 1247, was a very different sort of person. He was
a holy man, and believed with all his heart in the
ideals of St. Francis. On his election Brothers
Egidio, Masseo, Angelo, and Leo burst into trans-
ports of joy because they thought that in him the
spirit of St. Francis had returned to triumph upon
earth : " Bene et opportune venisti sed venisti tarde
— You have come well and opportunely, but you
have come late." And John of Parma did his best
to fulfil their hopes. He went about from monastery
to monastery urging the brethren to return to the
teachings of their founder; he comforted the sor-
rowful, rescued the wicked from their wickedness,
ministered to the sick, cherished the weak, and gladly
taught the ignorant. Best of all, he was as enthusi-
astic in his acceptance of the doctrine of poverty as
Francis himself. He wrote a little book entitled,
The holy commerce between St. Francis and Lady
Poverty. He says: "Among the shining virtues
that prepare in man a dwelling-place for God and
show him the most excellent and expeditious way
to come to God, Holy Poverty stands preeminent,
and by a special grace surpasses in desert all other
virtues, since she is the foundation and guardian of
them all. Among evangelical virtues she comes first
in place and in honour. They that build upon this
rock need not fear the fall of rain, the beating of

868 ITALY IN THE THIKTEENTH CENTURY

waves, or the blasts of wind that threaten ruin. And
she deserves her honour, since the Son of God, the
Lord of righteousness, the King of glory, working
His work of salvation in the world sought her,
found her, and clave unto her with an especial love."
The triumph of the spiritual-minded in the Fran-
ciscan Order did not mean the triumph of peace. Per-
haps these zealots were not without a touch of spir-
itual pride. They were now free to extol poverty
to their hearts' content, they were free to live, like
the old Greek hermits of Calabria, in remote places,
singly or in twos and threes, and to do whatever
might seem best to conduce to a direct communion
with God; but they could not help noticing that
their doctrines and practices, which they had received
from St. Francis, and he had had from the Gospels,
were markedly different, if not from the doctrines
at least from the practices of the worldly-wise part of
the Order and also from the practice of the Church.
They professed humble obedience to established au-
thority, but their notions were fatally at odds with
the orthodox ecclesiastical system, and they did not
forbear to lay stress on the disagreement. Here were
irreconcilable elements doomed to rend the Order
for hundreds of years. It almost seemed as if St.
Francis had followed the footsteps of his master even
to the point of bringing not peace, but a sword into
the world. Aspirations to realize a kingdom of God
on earth as St. Francis understood it, and the prac-
tical sense of sagacious men, and the greed and de-
sires of ambitious men, strove and struggled with
one another. Not only within the Order was there

PROGRESS OF THE FRANCISCAN ORDER 369

dissension ; but also without, between the Order and
the ecclesiastical world.

The enormous popularity of the Order had, as it
were, shifted the centre of gravity in religious mat-
ters. The parochial congregations were diminished,
the priests' revenues fell off, their privileges tumbled
in value. Almost everybody went to hear the friars
preach, almost everybody gave offerings and alms to
the friars, almost everybody wished to be shrived
and buried by them. The secular clergy were injured
in their immemorial fees and perquisites. Besides this,
the more fiery monks, like Anthony of Padua, de-
nounced in unmeasured terms the riches of the priest-
hood, their sensuality, and their lust of power. The
secular clergy were not only hurt in property and in
their dignity, but they were insulted besides. A
shriek of indignation went up from Sicily to Eng-
land; the friars thundered back counter-denuncia-
tions. The secular priests, the Benedictine monks,
the Emperor's courtiers, vied with one another in
reproaches, making little or no distinction between
the zealots and the unscrupulous, worldly-minded
men, who had joined the Order in such large num-
bers. They accused the friars of avarice, rapacity,
hypocrisy, of insinuating themselves into the confi-
dence of simple women, of superstitious sinners on
their death-beds, of credulous kings; they charged
them with the seven deadly sins; they likened them
to wolves in sheeps' clothing, to whitened sepulchres,
fair on the outside, but within full of dead men's
bones. It is hard to say what truth, and how much,
lies under these angry words. On the one hand, there

370 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

were men like John of Parma, true, pure, honour-
able, devoted ; on the other, there were many men in
the Order utterly devoid of principle, who had joined
it from vulgar motives. And there were many, who,
whether they were men of principle or not, brought
down upon themselves and their Order all kinds of op-
probrium because they were tax-gatherers, employed
by the papal court to collect, in disregard of precedent,
by stretch of power, by hook and by crook, enough
money to supply the swelling needs of the papal ex-
chequer. Naturally the popes inclined to back the
friars through thick and thin, not merely because
they found the friars serviceable tax-gatherers and
news-bearers (or, as their enemies said, scandal-mon-
gers), but because they recognized the immense
importance of keeping the friars' genuine religious
fervour tightly harnessed to the papal car. In this
way currents and counter-currents troubled the re-
ligious waters, rendered turbid enough already by the
war between the Papacy and the Hohenstaufens.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE DISCIPLES OF JOACHIM (1247-1257)

A* ships, becalm'd at eve, that lay

With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day

Are scarce long leagues apart descried ;

At dead of night their sails were fill'd,

And onward each rejoicing steer'd —
Ah, neither blame, for neither will'd,

Or wist, what first with dawn appear'd !

A. H. CLOUQH.

DISSENSION did not confine itself to disputes as to
whether the ideas and practices of the Franciscans
conformed with the ideas and practices of St. Fran-
cis, but reached out to the more serious question as
to whether the doctrines of the Order conformed
with the doctrines of the Church. The outside
world, censorious and jealous, as I have said, — the
secular clergy, the Benedictine monks, the univer-
sity professors, — did not stop to discriminate be-
tween the spiritual and the worldly-wise parties in
the Order ; wherever they found a cause or an ex-
cuse for an accusation, they flung the accusation at
the whole Order. It was absurd to charge the spir-
itual-minded brethren with avarice, and it was ab-
surd to charge the worldly-wise with false doctrine ;
but jealousy blindly threw her calumnies at the
whole Order without discrimination. The spiritual-
minded, it is true, laid themselves open to a cer-

372 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

tain suspicion of deviation from orthodoxy ; in their
desperate hopes to find a world more in sympathy
with their ascetic ideals, some of the brethren,
here and there, laid hold of the old ideas of Abbot
Joachim. This was dangerous ground. Nobody
could pretend ignorance of the fundamental ortho-
dox belief. The Lateran Council, under the guid-
ance of the great Innocent III, had stated this
belief explicitly : —

" We firmly believe and unfeignedly acknowledge
that the very God is one only, eternal, immeasurable,
unchangeable, incomprehensible, omnipotent, and
ineffable, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost ;
three persons, indeed, but one essence, substance, or
nature; the Father unbegotten, but the Son begot-
ten by the Father, and the Holy Ghost proceeding
equally from both, without beginning and without
end ; the Father begetting, the Son begotten, and
the Holy Ghost proceeding ; of one substance, co-
equal, co-omnipotent and co-eternal ; one source of
all things ; the creator of all things, visible and invisi-
ble, spiritual and corporeal, who by His omnipotent
power in the beginning of time out of nothing
created both the spiritual and the corporeal creature,
to wit, the angelic and the earthly, and afterward
the human, made of the spiritual and the corporeal.
The Devil and other demons were created by God
naturally good, and of themselves they became bad.
Man sinned at the suggestion of the Devil.

" The Holy Trinity, individual according to its
common essence and separate as to its personal
qualities, by Moses first, and in the due order of time

THE DISCIPLES OF JOACHIM 373

by the holy prophets and its other servants, laid the
foundation of the doctrine of salvation for the human
race.

" And finally, Jesus Christ, the only begotten son
of God, incarnate by the Holy Trinity acting as one,
conceived by the Virgin Mary through the opera-
tion of the Holy Ghost, made very man, composed
of a rational soul and human flesh, one person in
two natures, pointed out the way of life more mani-
festly ; who the while according to His divine nature
was immortal and unsusceptible of death and pain,
and yet He himself according to His human nature
subject to pain and to death; who, also, for the
human race suffered upon the cross and died. He
descended into hell, He rose again in the flesh, and
ascended both in the spirit and in the flesh, to come
at the end of the world to judge the quick and the
dead and to reward each according to his works, the
evil as well as the good, who shall all rise again
with their own bodies which they now wear that
they may receive according to their works, whether
they shall have been good or evil, the latter with
the Devil to everlasting punishment, the former with
Christ to glory everlasting.

" There is one Universal Church of the Faith out-
side of which none shall be saved, in which Jesus
Christ, the sacrifice, is the priest, whose body and
blood are verily contained in the sacrament on the
altar under the form of bread and wine, the bread
by divine power transubstantiate into His body and
the wine into His blood so that for the fulfilment of
the mystery of union we may ourselves receive from

374 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

His Nature what He Himself received from ours.
And therefore none can celebrate this sacrament ex-
cept the priest who was duly ordained according to
the keys of the Church, which Jesus Christ Himself
gave to the apostles and their successors.

" The sacrament of baptism, which both for child-
ren and adults shall be celebrated in water with in-
vocation to God and to the undivided Trinity, to
wit, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, by
whatever rite conferred according to the forms of
the Church, avails for salvation. And if after bap-
tism any one shall fall back into sin, he can always
reinstate himself by true penitence."

This definite creed of the Church was obviously
out of accord with Joachim's somewhat fantastic
doctrine ; the creed was eminently Christian and re-
volved upon the part played by Christ in the scheme
of salvation and not upon that played by the Holy
Ghost. The doctrine of the Trinity in itself was a
nice matter, and for persons not endowed with a
special gift for theological orthodoxy it was better
to let it alone ; Abbot Joachim had been condemned
by the Lateran Council for his attempt to meddle
with it. But the peril of meddling with orthodox
truth became vastly more perilous when practical
consequences began to flow from this meddling ;
and the peril was insidious because it was easy for
a credulous mind, with a will to believe in happier
things, to slip and slide from Joachim's less unortho-
dox theories to his more unorthodox speculations.

In John of Parma's time Joachim's ideas, distorted,
and mingled with many spurious additions, took

THE DISCIPLES OF JOACHIM 375

definite heretical shape. For years strange prophe-
cies, fantastic interpretations of prophets curiously
classed together, — Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Merlin, the
Erythraean Sibyl, — had been passed round under
Joachim's name ; wandering friars had carried these
notions from monastery to monastery ; and many of
the spiritual-minded began to think that the time
was at hand which Joachim had foretold, when An-
tichrist should come, and after Antichrist the new
dispensation of the Holy Ghost. Some went into the
matter of exact fulfilment and applied the verses of
Isaiah or of Revelation to local events then happen-
ing, to the Emperor Frederick, to the length of his
life, to the manner in which he should die, and so
forth.

Brother Salimbene, of Parma (the Franciscan
monk whose memoirs are the most famous of the
century) records how widespread these ideas were
and what a strong hold they had taken. For instance,
he draws the following picture of a Franciscan monk
of the Joachimite faction in 1248.

Brother Hugo, of Digne, a famous preacher, was
sojourning at Hyeres, a little town in Provence on
the Mediterranean coast. Several other monks of
different orders were there at the same time ; some
had gone on purpose to see him, others were there
in the course of their journey ings. One day these
monks were chatting together after breakfast, and
one of them, Brother Johnny, a chorister from
Naples, a Joachimite, said to a Dominican : " Brother
Peter, what do you think of Abbot Joachim's doc-
trine?" Brother Peter answered: "I care as much

376 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

for Joachim as I do for the fifth wheel of a coach."
At this Johnny ran off to Brother Hugo's room,
and cried, in the hearing of all : " There 's a Do-
minican monk here who does n't believe in Joachim's
doctrine ! " To this Hugo answered : " What's that
to me? If he doesn't believe, that is his lookout.
When troubles provide his eyes with powers of sight,
they will open. But bid him come and discuss. Let's
hear what he doesn't believe." The Dominican con-
sented, but reluctantly, partly because he thought
meanly of Joachim, and partly because he did not
think there was anybody in the house who was his
equal in knowledge either of the humanities or of
Holy Scripture.

When Brother Hugo saw him, he said : " Are
you the man who does n't believe in Joachim's
ideas?"

Brother Peter : "Yes."

Brother Hugo : " Have you ever read Joachim ? "
i Brother Peter : " Yes, I 've read him carefully."

Brother Hugo : " I believe you 've read him as
a woman reads the psalter ; when she 's come to the
end she does n't know what she read at the begin-
ning. There are many who stand over a book and
do not understand it, either because they despise
what they read, or because their foolish hearts are
in the dark. Now, tell me what you want to hear
about Joachim, so that we may know what you
don't believe."

Brother Peter : " I want you to prove to me out
of Isaiah, according to Joachim, that the life of the
Emperor Frederick will end at the age of seventy,

THE DISCIPLES OF JOACHIM 377

and also that he cannot die except by the hand of
God, — I mean by a natural death."

Brother Hugo: " Very good. Only listen patiently
and don't interrupt with vexatious questions, for
it is necessary to approach Joachim's doctrine with
an open mind.

" Abbot Joachim was a holy man and he said that
the future events which he prophesied had been re-
vealed to him by God for the good of men. As re-
gards the true sanctity of Joachim's life, besides what
we are told in his biography, I can cite one instance,
which shows his extraordinary patience. When he
was a simple monk, before he was made abbot, the
brother in charge of the refectory was angry with
him, and for a whole year always put water in his
cup for him to drink, in order to serve him with the
bread of tribulation and the water of anguish.
Joachim bore this patiently without a complaint. At
the end of the year, however, he sat next the Abbot
at table, and the Abbot said to him, 'Why do you
drink white wine and not give me any? Is that your
good manners?' The blessed Joachim answered, ( I
was ashamed, Father, to offer it to you, because my
secret is my secret.' Then the Abbot took Joachim's
cup to try the wine and took a sip, and perceived
that it was a pretty poor affair. So when he had
tasted the water (not converted into wine) he said,
' What is water, but water ? ' and turning to Joa-
chim, 'By whose authority do you drink this drink?'
and Joachim answered, ' Father, water is a very tem-
perate drink, it does not impede the tongue, nor
cause intoxication, nor babbling.' But when the

378 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

Abbot learned from the other brothers that this
wrong had been done Joachim out of malice and
spite by the brother in charge of the refectory, he
wished to expel him from the Order; but Joachim
flung himself at the Abbot's feet and besought him
so earnestly that the Abbot forbore to expel the
wrong-doer. Nevertheless, he scolded him good and
hard: 'You have violated the rule and so I impose
this penance, that for a whole year you shall drink
nothing but water, because you have despitefully
used your neighbour and your brother.'

"Now about the life of the Emperor Frederick,
that it shall end according to Isaiah, you have it in
the place where he speaks of the burden of Tyre,
Isaiah, chap, xxin, vv. 13-15: * Behold the land
of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the As-
syrian founded it ... And it shall come to pass
in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy
years according to the days of one king/ . . . Re-
mark that in this passage Joachim understands
the 'land of the Chaldeans' to be the Roman Em-
pire and by ' the Assyrian ' Frederick himself, and
by ' Tyre ' Sicily ; he understands by ' the days
of one king' the whole life of Frederick, and he
takes seventy years as the term of life fixed by
Merlin.

"As to the prophecy that Frederick cannot be
killed by man, but only by God, Isaiah says, chap-
ter xxxi, * the Assyrian shall not fall by the sword
of a hero, nor shall the sword of man devour him.
And he shall not flee from the face of the sword,
and his young men shall be tributary. And for fear

THE DISCIPLES OF JOACHIM 379

his strength shall pass, and his princes flying shall
tremble. The Lord hath spoken, whose fire is in Zion
and his furnace in Jerusalem/ All this was fulfilled
in regard to Frederick, especially at Parma, where
he was routed by the garrison and his fort ' Victory '
was destroyed ; and [afterwards], for the barons of
his kingdom often wanted to kill him, but they could
not."

Brother Peter: "You can tell all that to those
who believe you; but you can never persuade me to
believe you."

Brother Hugo : " Why not ? Don't you believe
the prophets ? "

Brother Peter : " Of course I do, but tell me is
what you expound to me Isaiah's original meaning,
or is it an inference, twisted and distorted, or in-
terpreted, so as to apply ? "

Brother Hugo : " That's a sensible question. I an-
swer that it is an application of Isaiah's statement.
... In Holy Writ besides the literal or matter of
fact meaning, there are allegorical, analogical, trop-
ological, moral, and mystical meanings ; and there-
fore the matter is judged more useful and more
noble than if, squeezed and compressed into one
meaning only, it could only have a single significa-
tion. Do you believe this, or does your skepticism
go so far as to deny that ? "

Brother Peter : "I believe that and I have often
taught it, because that is the teaching of the theolo-
gians; but I should like you to explain a little more
clearly about the seventy years that Isaiah predicates
under the allegory of ' Tyre/ and about the days of

380 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

( one king ' that he predicates under the figure of the
Emperor."

Brother Hugo : [avoiding the question] " The
things that Merlin, the inspired English prophet,
prophesied about Frederick I, and about Henry VI,
his son, and about Frederick II, will be found to be
true. But let us leave side issues and stick to those
with which our discussion began. Let us, therefore,
take up the four periods which Merlin predicates in
speaking of Frederick II. First he stated, * In thirty-
two years he will fall ' ; that may be understood to
be from his coronation as Emperor to the end of his
life, because he reigned thirty years and eleven days
[21] and then was not believed to be dead, so that
the prophecy of the Sibyl should be fulfilled which
says, 'It shall be rumoured among the people, he
lives and he does not live.' [This conversation took
place in 1248, and Frederick died December 13, 1250.
The passage is very obscure ; perhaps Salimbene al-
tered and botched it at a later date.]

" Merlin's second period is : ' He shall live in pros-
perity seventy-two years.' As Frederick is still living
those who survive him will see how that comes out.

" Merlin's third period is : ( And two times quin-
quagenarian he will be treated gently.' That must not
be understood as twice a quinquagenarian, as that
would make him a hundred years old, but as fifty
and then two, that is fifty-two years old. That num-
ber may be reckoned from the year in which his
mother was married [1185] up to the eighteenth
year of his reign [1237, the date of Frederick's
defeat at Parma], which makes fifty-two years. . .

f THE DISCIPLES OF JOACHIM 381

" Merlin's fourth period for Frederick is : ' And
after the eighteenth year from his anointment, he will
hold his kingdom in spite of envy/ This is fulfilled
in respect to Gregory IX with whom Frederick
quarrelled so that the Pope excommunicated him,
and yet he still holds his realm in spite of the Pope,
the cardinals, and the princes of the Empire."

When Brother Peter heard this he began to mut-
ter ambiguously : " Many foods are in the Tillage of
the Fathers; but one kind is better than another/'
Brother Hugo answered : " Don't tamper with Holy
Writ; but give your authority as it stands in the
texts; you have left out the end of one verse and
the beginning of the other. Give the first verse as
the Wise Man gives it in the Proverbs, chapter xm."
[" Many foods are in the Tillage of the Fathers ; and
some mix them together with lack of judgment." Prov.
xin, 23.] Brother Peter, hearing this, did as some
do when they are getting the worst of an argument,
he began to upbraid and said, " It would be hereti-
cal to take the words of infidels for testimony ; I mean
Merlin, whose testimony you have quoted." At this
Brother Hugo got very much provoked, and said to
him: "You lie, and I will prove that you have lied
ever so many times." Hugo then began to quote
poetry, and Peter, hoping to better his side of the
argument, had recourse to the texts of the saints
and the sayings of philosophers ; but Brother Hugo,
who was most learned in all those matters, quickly
got him entangled and shut him up.

Such disputes must have taken place in many a
monastery ; they do not, as we look through the haze

382 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

of time and changed ideas, seem edifying, but, at
least in those cases where one of the disputants was
as amiable as Brother Peter, no harm was done. At
other times, speculations with very little savour of
orthodoxy were whispered about in northern Italy
and in Provence, old homes of heresy ; and, at last,
these whisperings took definite shape. One of the
believers in Joachim's prophecies, Brother Gerard,
of Borgo San Donnino (a little town on the Via
Emilia nearly midway between Piacenza and Parma),
wrote a book called The Introduction to the Eter-
nal Evangile. Nothing could have been more radi-
cal, more revolutionary, than this book. It flung
down a challenge to orthodox Christianity. Brother
Gerard's plan was to publish Joachim's authentic
works, The Concord between the Old and New
Testaments, The Commentary on the Apocalypse,
and The Psalter of Ten Chords ; and by way of
preface he wrote an introduction of his own, in
which he not only explained Joachim's doctrine, but
went so far as to assert that these treatises of Jo-
achim's actually constituted The Eternal Evangile
which was destined to supersede the previous two
evangiles, the Old and New Testaments. This sub-
stitution of a new regime for the Christian regime,
this revolutionary coming of the Holy Ghost, neces-
sarily overtoppled the whole fabric of ecclesiastical
Christianity. Under the new dispensation the Fran-
ciscan friars would supersede the priests and all the
official hierarchy ; bishops, cardinals, the Pope him-
self, would follow the Levites of the Old Testament
into the limbo of cast-off things. Even the revered

THE DISCIPLES OF JOACHIM 383

name of Joachim could not veil the awful nakedness
of this heresy.

The doctors of the University of Paris, the great
centre of theology, shared to the full the dislike
which the secular clergy entertained towards the
friars. Both Franciscans and Dominicans, having
already forced their way into every diocese and par-
ish, were also forcing their way into chairs of public
instruction in Paris. The doctors were jealous and
angry. They had now an opportunity of revenge.
No doubt they persuaded themselves, as persons an-
imated by righteous indignation often do, that they
acted from a sentiment of impartial justice. The
cause of scholasticism was threatened by mysticism,
the cause of the Church was challenged by a new
heresy ; and the professors of the University girded
themselves as champions of orthodoxy. William
of Saint Amour, a noted professor of philosophy, a
doctor of the Sorbonne, and rector of the University,
preached against the book and sent a committee to lay
charges before the Pope. Brother Gerard had not
put his name to the book, but it was obviously written
by a Franciscan friar of the spiritual-minded party.
This was the main reason that induced the Univer-
sity of Paris to attack the book; they could not
attack the Order directly, for it was too strongly en-
trenched in the good graces of the Papacy, and had
not exposed itself to any legal complaint, but they
could attack it indirectly through this extravagant
book, that showed itself, like the heel of Achilles,
defenceless to a well-directed shaft. Feeling ran high.
The hate of the accusers was so strong that, accord-

384 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

ing to the papal bull which judged the charges, they
falsely and maliciously altered the meaning of the
text. The Pope appointed a committee of cardinals
to examine the charges ; the committee acted pru-
dently and reasonably, they found nothing heretical
in the text of Joachim's books, but they condemned
the introduction. The Pope confirmed their findings;
but though he condemned the heresy, he was care-
ful not to let the condemnation hurt the Brothers
Minor. " We wish," the bull says, " to keep the name
and fame of the Poor of Christ, the Order of the be-
loved Brothers Minor, always unhurt and untouched,
. . . therefore we command you by these presents to
proceed so prudently, so cautiously, in the execution of
this apostolic mandate that these Brothers shall incur
no opprobrium, no ill-repute, and that their rivals and
detractors shall not find means to speak ill of them."
Brother Gerard was deposed from his office of
lector, deprived of the rights to preach and to hear
confession, and of other sacerdotal prerogatives, also.
His book was condemned to be burnt. This punish-
ment satisfied the demands of ecclesiastical justice ;
but the worldly-wise party in the Order were not ap-
peased. They thought that the fanaticism or stupid-
ity of Brother Gerard in propounding a heresy, with
which they had no sympathy, brought the Order into
disrepute, and they punished him on their own ac-
count. He was put in prison, set in the stocks, and
served with " the bread of tribulation and the water
of anguish " ; and finally when he died his body was
denied consecrated ground and the rites of ecclesi-
astical burial.

THE DISCIPLES OF JOACHIM 385

Brother Gerard was not the only one to suffer.
William of Saint Amour, the professor, also went
too far. Encouraged by his success against poor
Gerard, he published a very violent book against the
mendicant orders. The Pope would not tolerate such
a plain breach of his command. The professor was
turned out of his chair ; he was stripped of his rights
to preach and to teach, and even banished from
France. And the quarrel did not stop there. The
two wings of the Order clashed again ; the seeds of
discord sown even in Francis's lifetime brought forth
a fresh harvest of docks and darnels. The heresy of
the Eternal Evangile was too useful a weapon to
be lightly abandoned. The worldly-wise party at-
tacked the minister-general, John of Parma. With-
out doubt a majority of the brethren, probably a
large majority, was opposed to him. Many found
his strict observance of the rule irksome. They had
asked for relaxation, and he had refused to grant it.
Some, under pretext of serving a bishop or other
prelate, had attempted to shirk prescribed duties;
some had tried to organize independent groups within
the Order ; some had wanted to establish new provin-
cial districts in foreign parts; but John of Parma
had sternly held them to obedience. In retaliation
they charged him with sundry misbehaviours : that
he had rejected all interpretations of the rule, even
those that had received papal sanction ; that he had
added to the rule, as if they were a part of it, the
provisions of St. Francis's testament ; that he had
predicted (poor man) a division in the Order ; that
te shared certain heretical opinions held by the dis-

386 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

ciples of Joachim ; and they demanded his removal.
The poor minister-general, conscious as he must have
been of the contrast between the ascetic ideal of St.
Francis and the practical duties incumbent upon the
minister-general of a great order, just as Francis him-
self had felt it, and not wishing to retain the office
if he did not fill it acceptably, yielded to the clam-
our against him and resigned. The Pope, Alexan-
der IV, who doubtless regarded the resignation as
desirable under the circumstances, accepted it; and
Brother Bonaventura, the saintly scholar, who had
already made a great reputation at the University of
Paris, was elected in his stead.

Brother John, once again a simple friar, found
greater pleasure in his freedom than he had ever
done in his high office. He betook himself to the
hermitage at Greccio, the spot where his beloved mas-
ter, St. Francis, had celebrated the manger scene
in memory of their common Master, and there lived
as a hermit ; but, though he refused high honours
that were afterwards offered him, he did not wholly
forsake the world, and he was greatly beloved by
the highest dignitaries. Innocent IV, hard hater that
he was, loved Brother John like his own soul, and
was wont to kiss him when they met. Other popes,
cardinals as well, and even the Emperor of the
Greeks, Vataces, to whom John went upon an em-
bassy, entertained great affection for him. He died
a very old man in 1298.

CHAPTER XXVII

MANFRED (1250-1260)

Biondo era e bello e di gentile aspetto,

Purgatorio, m, 107.

Fair he was, and beautiful, and of noble aspect.

Lo cavalero pin fino,
Ch'e fiore gibellino
Sovr' ogn' altro latino

Old Sienese Rhymes.
The cavalier most fine,
He is the flower Ghibelline
Beyond every other Latin.

IT is necessary to return to the political situation.
The last act of the great drama of the Hohenstauf ens
in Italy draws to its close. On Frederick's death,
his son Conrad IV, who had already been crowned
King of the Romans, was confronted in Germany
by the pretender, William of Holland; but Conrad's
title was generally acknowledged. His life, however,
was short, and he played but a brief part in the his-
tory of Italy. Manfred is the last notable Hohenstau-
fen champion, and there are few more dashing and
charming figures than he.

As gallant as his brother Enzio, as well endowed
perhaps with intellectual gifts as his father and less
treacherous than he, Manfred doughtily maintained
the high Hohenstauf en tradition; and the verses
of Dante, who met him " fair and beautiful and of
noble aspect" at the foot of the Mount of Purgatory,

388 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

have given an immortal glamour and pathos to his
name. Elsewhere Dante speaks of those " two illus-
trious heroes, the Emperor Frederick and his high-
born son Manfred, who showed the nobility and
rectitude of their characters, and, while fortune re-
mained loyal to them, attached themselves to the
higher pursuits of man and scorned what was un-
worthy."

Besides what Dante says there is abundant testi-
mony from both Guelf and Ghibelline to Manfred's
rare and attractive qualities. In person he was of
medium height and agreeable presence, with light
hair like all the Hohenstaufens ; his face was
comely, his cheeks ruddy, his eyes sparkling, and
his complexion very fair. According to a Guelf
chronicler : " He was proficient in the liberal arts,
the first among the nobility in courage and dili-
gence, and he was handsomer and more gifted than
his brothers ; he might well be called the Lucifer of
his family." And a Ghibelline says : " Nature en-
dowed him with all the graces, and fashioned all
parts of his body in such well-according beauty
that there was no part that could be bettered."
This same Ghibelline historian, partly out of senti-
ment and partly, unless I do him wrong, to show his
own literary talents, adds : " He was so like his
father that he was well called Manfred, Martens
Fredericus, as if Frederick still remained in him, or
Manus Frederici, the hand of Frederick, or Men-
f red, mens Frederici, the mind of Frederick, or mons
Fredirici, the monument of Frederick." But for
a dearth of vowels he would have gone on further;

MANFRED 389

yet he has said enough to show that in the opinion
of Manfred's contemporaries Frederick had left a
worthy son. Even the court poet of his successful
rival cannot forbear to praise him :

Biaus chevaliers et preus et sages fu Mainfrois,
De toutes bonnes teches entechies et courtois ;
En lui ne faloit riens fors que seulement fois,
Mais ceste f aute est laid en contes et en rois.

A handsome cavalier, knightly and wise was he,
With all good qualities endowed, and courtesy ;
He had no lack, except one single thing,
— True faith, — an ugly fault in count or king.

The poet spoke truly. Manfred's lack of faith, in its
larger sense of submission to the papal creed, politi-
cal as well as theological, cost him his crown and
his life.

Manfred was but nineteen years old when his
father died, but even then he showed that he had
inherited his father's suppleness and readiness of
resource. During Conrad's stay in Germany he
acted as royal lieutenant in The Kingdom ; and
there was much to do, for, as soon as Frederick's
strong hand was still, revolts broke out in many
places.

There were various reasons for these revolts. The
population of Sicily and southern Italy was ignorant,
fickle, passionate, and without perseverance or en-
durance; it was cowardly, and yet eager for ven-
geance ; it was neither homogeneous, nor steadied
by the inheritance of a common tradition ; and the
more turbulent spirits always hoped for better things
from a change of masters. Frederick's government

390 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

had been a personal one, based on his power to main-
tain it, and not upon any loyalty in his subjects ;
and he had not had many friends. The clergy with
a few exceptions, and the monastic orders, were his
enemies. The cities resented his refusal to let them
have the communal franchises that the North Italian
cities enjoyed. The barons bore with ill-will the loss
of ancient feudal privileges, and hated his plan of a
strong central bureaucratic government. All feared
him, and all suffered under his heavy taxation.
Naples, the chief city of the mainland, faithful to its
old traditions of independence, and Capua as well,
always inclined to the anti-Hohenstaufen cause. On
the other hand, Frederick had saved the peasantry
from the tyranny of the barons, he had given the
mercantile cities peace and therefore better trade,
and he had established a code of laws that was a
marked improvement on the heterogeneous legisla-
tion that preceded it. But among the forces work-
ing for or against the Hohenstaufens there was one
factor steadily at work stirring the people to hostility
and revolt. The Papacy, during Frederick's lifetime,
had not been idle, and now that he was dead it did
not sit with folded hands; Innocent IV believed
that his opportunity had come and proposed to make
the most of it.

Manfred, however, was personally popular ; he had
two sets of soldiers on whom he could rely, his Sara-
cens and his German mercenaries; and by the time
that affairs north of the Alps permitted his brother
Conrad, the new king, to come down into Italy, he
had already reduced almost all The Kingdom to obe-

MANFKED 391

dience. Conrad completed the task and then tried
to come to terms with the Pope. Both Conrad and
Manfred realized the power of papal hostility, and
by diplomacy, blandishments, and proffers of submis-
sion, strove to appease it, but in vain. The Pope
pretended to entertain Conrad's propositions for
peace, but he cherished an implacable hatred in his
heart against the Hohenstaufens, and held fast to
his resolve to execute the sentence of the Council
of Lyons and drive them from The Kingdom. To
this end he sought help from France and England;
as suzerain with an empty fief on his hands, he of-
fered the Sicilian crown in turn to Charles of Anjou,
brother to King Louis IX of France, to Richard of
Cornwall, brother to Henry III of England, and to
Henry's son, Prince Edmund. The terms of the offer
provided that the recipient was first to conquer the
crown and then receive it from the Pope. Charles
of Anjou was not at the time free to consider the
offer; Richard of Cornwall remarked that his Holi-
ness had graciously granted him the moon with per-
mission to go and get it, but foolish King Henry
was delighted to make his second son a king, and
accepted.

On Conrad's death two years later, the whole face
of affairs was changed. There was no soldier king
to be fought ; the heir, Conrad the younger, was a
little baby ; and Innocent altered his plans accord-
ingly. Without communicating any change of plans
to England (for it was well to have two strings to
one's bow), he secretly decided not to confer the
vacant kingdom upon a new vassal, but to enter into

392 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

possession himself as suzerain and annex it to the
Papal States. The prospect looked very favourable
because Conrad, who out of jealousy had become
estranged from Manfred, had appointed by his tes-
tament a German baron, Berthold of Hohenberg, re-
gent during the minority of his son Corradino, and,
following the example of his grandfather Henry VI,
had put Corradino under the protection of the
Church. With this situation before him, Innocent
perfected his plans, and when he felt ready to put
them into execution, announced that the kingdom
had devolved upon its suzerain, but that when Cor-
radino came of age he would consider his claims;
and with fresh energy the double-dealing priest
continued to push his intrigues with the disaffected
barons.

The situation was serious for the Hohenstaufen
cause. Berthold of Hohenberg, timid, incompetent,
and treacherous, gave up the regency to Manfred,
who, with the suppleness so characteristic of his
father, bent to the storm and accepted the claim of
the Pope, on condition that he should become the
Pope's vicar. The Pope came down in triumph and
entered Capua. Manfred was ill at ease; he felt that
he was encompassed by enemies and traitors, but
trusting in his own adroitness he hoped to come out
unscathed. Chance or fate abruptly ended the sit-
uation. The Pope certainly played false. Manfred
had plighted fealty to the Pope " saving the rights
of Corradino," and then he was abruptly asked to
take the oath with no saving clause; besides this,
the Pope, after he had confirmed, or promised to

MANFRED 393

confirm, Manfred in some disputed barony, juggling
with words, granted the barony to a nobleman sub-
servient to himself. This caused bad feelings between
Manfred and his rival; and, as ill luck would have
it, Manfred and his men while riding on a narrow
road came suddenly upon the usurper. Manfred
probably was not to blame, he was too prudent to
be guilty of so dangerous an act; but his men raised
a shout, set upon the nobleman, and killed him. The
Pope affected great displeasure, and summoned
Manfred to appear before him for trial at Capua.
Manfred hesitated ; he stopped a little way out of
the town, and asked for some modifications of the
Pope's summons and an assurance of fair play ; he
got an unsatisfactory answer. His friends were
frightened, and counselled flight. He had to act
promptly. He made ostensible preparations to obey
the Pope, and then, with a scanty train, galloped off
by night. His flight remained unequalled for adven-
ture and romance in Italian history until Garibaldi's
flight from Rome in 1849. His goal was the town
of Lucera, in Apulia, across the Apennines, and
about seventy-five miles northeast of Naples, as the
crow flies. This town was famous in papal diatribes
and a scandal to Christendom, for there, a genera-
tion before, Frederick had stationed the Saracens
whom he had removed from Sicily. Ever since then
the town had been a Saracen stronghold and de-
voted to the Hohenstaufens. John the Moor, a
henchman of the old Emperor, was governor. There,
more than anywhere else, Manfred felt that he
would be safe. Troops of the Pope, or men-at-arms

394 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

in the service of Berthold of Hohenberg, who now
made common cause with the Pope, infested the
high-roads. It was impossible to say what the peas-
ants would do. Two young noblemen, familiar with
the road to Lucera, for it led past their paternal
estates, volunteered to act as Manfred's guides. The
fugitives passed the town of Nola (where Augustus
Caesar died), and then they were obliged to take a
circuitous course to avoid strongholds and towns
held by enemies. Even so their road ran directly un-
der one of the hostile castles, and they were obliged
to strike into the woods. The peaks of the Apen-
nines are here over four thousand feet high, and
the climbing is hard for horse or man. The moon
shone clear but its light gave a spectral look to the
precipitous rocks, and in the darker recesses added
to the difficulty of the way. In one place they
were nearly forced to abandon their horses. At day-
break they came again on a road, but it led them
directly to an enemy's castle. Challenged, they an-
swered that they were Hohenberg's men, and they
were permitted to go in single file by a narrow path
around under the walls. The pack-mules, which
were ahead, balked, and the men in the rear thought
that the garrison had ambushed them. It was a
false alarm, the garrison suspected nothing; and
the little band kept on till it reached the estates of
the two young noblemen. Here their two wives,
handsome, high-bred ladies, welcomed the Prince
with great loyalty, and he did them the honour, in
his chivalrous way, to seat one on his right hand
and one on his left, during breakfast. The meal

MANFRED 395

was hasty; and Manfred hurried on to the house of
other friends, where he passed the night. At sun-
rise the next morning he was in the saddle again,
keeping his company in fighting array and sending
out scouts. Enemies were all about. One town re-
ported that the papal army in the neighbourhood
•had given it till the day after to-morrow to surren-
der; the next had already sworn allegiance to the
Pope. In the third, Manfred's scout found the
townsmen in an uproar; the papal and the national
parties were fighting for the mastery. The national
faction, hearing that Manfred was near, sent a mes-
senger to beg him come to secure the town for his
cause. Manfred's men were delighted to have an
opportunity to strike a blow at their enemies, but
the sudden report that five hundred of Hohenberg's
soldiers, barely five miles away, were coming up,
obliged them to take another direction. Manfred
then made his way eastward past Monte Volture,
where, some thirteen hundred years before, the pi-
geons had covered with fresh green leaves a little
boy, Quintus Horatius Flaccus, who had fallen asleep
on the mountain-side tired with play. And from
Monte Volture he pushed on to Venosa, the town in
which that little boy had been born. From here he
meant to go due north to Lucera, where he ex-
pected to be received by John the Moor with open
arms.

John the Moor had been bred in the Emperor's
palace, he had been loaded with favours by the
Hohenstaufens, and had protested that he would do
all he could for the Emperor's son; but when he

396 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

heard that Manfred was a fugitive, and that fortune
smiled upon the papal cause, he put one of his
household, another Saracen, Marchisio, in his place
as custodian of the town, made him swear that he
would let no one, not even Prince Manfred, enter
during his absence, and posted off to make terms
with the Pope, sending false word to Manfred that
he was going on his account. There seemed to be
no loyalty to a losing cause anywhere in the Hohen-
staufen dominions. Nevertheless, even after Man-
fred heard of John the Moor's treachery, he still
entertained a hope of getting Lucera. That was his
only chance. In Lucera was his father's treasure;
and there, if anywhere, were friends, for the Sara-
cens could hope for but little from the Pope. He
sent scouts to learn what the feelings of the garri-
son were toward him. The scouts reported that they
entertained great good will and marvelled that he
had not gone there sooner. On hearing this, for
security's sake, as he could not tell whether to trust
the peasants of the country, he gave out that he
was going south, and with very few attendants rode
north at night toward Lucera. It was dark and
rainy, the little band could not even see one another,
and had to ride side by side and keep calling out, in
order to stay together. They lost the road and wan-
dered off into the fields. Luckily one of the party had
been a master of the hunt for the late Emperor and
recognized familiar ground. He managed to lead
them to a deserted hunting-lodge, where, somewhat
imprudently, they made a big fire, dried their clothes,
and spent the rest of the night, both man and beast

MANFEED 397

thankful for repose. Hostile troops, some belonging
to the papal army, some in the pay of Hohenberg,
were only a little way to the right and to the left.
Before dawn they were off again and rode to within
a mile or two of Lucera. Here Manfred stationed
his troop, while he and three soldiers, one of whom
spoke Arabic, rode on to the town. The guards were
on the alert ; so Manfred halted and the soldier who
knew Arabic rode alone to the gate. There he called
up: "Your Prince, the Emperor's son, is here, open
the gate." The guards hesitated, and Manfred rode
up. Still they were doubtful, and sent a man to
notify Marchisio, the castellan. Then one of them
spoke up : " Marchisio was charged by John the
Moor not to let any one, even the Prince, enter the
city, and he will not give the keys, but on the con-
trary, he will do all he can to keep the Prince from
coming in. The best thing is for the Prince to get
in any way possible, for once in, all will be easy."

It happened that there was a gutter under the
gate to carry away the rain-water ; and when the
gate was shut there was just space for a man to
crawl in on his belly. The same guard called down :
" Let the Prince come in by the hole under the gate ;
let us get him in any way we can." Manfred dis-
mounted, and was about to lie down and crawl in,
when the guards, mortified at the sight, cried :
" Never shall our Prince enter the city like that."
They broke open the gate, picked Manfred up in
their arms, and carried him triumphantly into the
town. Marchisio rushed out to stop them, but the
crowd would not tolerate disrespect; they forced the

398 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

castellan off his horse, down upon his knees, and
made him kiss Manfred's feet ; they then conducted
Manfred with cheers into the royal palace.

From this time Manfred's fortunes rose. His pos-
session of the royal treasure enabled him to hire
troops and to seduce detachments of the enemy. He
gained a victory over one division of the papal army,
and frightened the cardinal in command so badly
that he fled in terror. This must have been bitter
news to the Pope, who lay dying in Naples in the
palace that had once belonged to Pier della Vigna.
He had spent all his pontificate in one prolonged
endeavour to break the House of Hohenstaufen,
and just as he thought he had attained his dearest
wish and was about to annex The Kingdom to the
dominions of St. Peter came the report of Manfred's
victory.

Innocent IV was succeeded by Alexander IV, a
member of the great House of Conti and nephew of
Gregory IX, but he was not in the least like his fiery
and magnanimous uncle. Alexander was a man of
peace, a simple man, unequal to his great task. He
attempted to follow Innocent's deep policy and tan-
gled himself in intrigues. He entertained diplomatic
relations with Manfred, asserted his kind regard for
Corradino, but at the same time he was doing all he
could to persuade the King of England to fit out an
expedition for the conquest of Sicily.

In spite of the efforts of Alexander IV, Manfred
proceeded successfully. As regent in his nephew's
name he established his authority throughout The
Kingdom; but that title was not satisfactory, either

MANFKED 399

to himself or to the realm. A king's vicar never has
an authority as imposing as that of the king himself,
and it was no time for a child to be at the head of
a distracted state. Besides, Corradino was a German,
and Manfred an Italian. The perplexities of the sit-
uation, the avowed hostility of the Pope, were co-
gent arguments that Manfred should assume the
crown ; the barons urged him. A rumour spread
abroad that the young king was dead, and Manfred
profited by the occasion. He was crowned King at
Palermo August 10, 1258, to the apparent satisfac-
tion of The Kingdom.

The Guelfs said that Manfred himself started the
report that Corradino was dead. The accusation, in-
deed, wears the badges of probability ; the Emperor
Frederick would not have hesitated. But Manfred's
reputation suffers sorely from his final defeat. His
enemies had not only opportunity, but every motive
to send the grossest slanders current through Italy.
They accused him of murdering his father, his
brother Conrad, his younger brother Henry, and
Henry's sons. The noble Dante believed that his
sins were horrible, but not bad enough to condemn
him to the pains of hell. However the usurpation
may be judged morally, its political wisdom was
abundantly proved. Manfred became a power
throughout Italy.

The new sovereign, as arch enemy to the Papacy,
was the natural head of the Ghibelline party from
his kingdom to the Alps, and Manfred, half from
his own volition and half dragged on by the current
of events, gradually took that position. He cher-

400 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

ished a secret ambition to become King of Italy, and
perhaps higher yet ; therefore he strove to rise above
the limitations of party leader and to play the part
of supreme moderator between the contending fac-
tions. He affected to regard himself as his father's
heir and assumed imperial prerogatives. His first step
was to appoint Percivalle Doria, the troubadour,
vicar-general in the Duchy of Spoleto, in the March
of Ancona, and in Romagna. His next step in this
policy, and the most difficult, was to take part in
the affairs of Lombardy ; and by singular caprice the
goddess of circumstance seemed to foster his high
ambition. For the moment in all the northeast of
Italy ordinary political ties were broken, and a great
movement was afoot animated by a single purpose
to a common end.

For years Ezzelino da Romano had been growing
more fierce and terrible. The death of the Emperor
seemed to stir him to greater suspicion and to still
bloodier deeds. Perhaps some homicidal mania
touched his restless brain. His energy became fu-
rious, and though he took precautions to guard
himself from sudden attack, he displayed a satanic
recklessness in creating enemies. His creatures, An-
sedisius, the worthy nephew, and others, fulfilled his
slightest wish, " desiring more to please him than
to please God." Conspiracies, or rumours of con-
spiracies, against him were horribly punished. "It
is impossible," says Rolandino, " to make mention
of all and singular of those in Verona and Padua
who were beheaded, or broken on the rack, or dragged
on the ground, or burned to death, or blinded or

MANFRED 401

horribly mutilated. Lord Figura de Belludis, a wise
and worthy gentleman, was tortured to death in the
castle at Padua, and then his head was struck off in
the public square. The like was done to Otho de
Zambo; the like to Monriale de Plebe. Bonifacinus
de Robegano, who had been one of the knights in
the service of the podesta, was dragged through the
city at a horse's tail by the podesta's creatures, his
head was cut off and his body burned in the court-
yard. The next month seventeen men in one day,
almost in one hour, were flogged to death in the
public square of Padua, then fires were lighted all
about and their bodies burned piece by piece. . . .
Where now are the innumerable, the laudable, mul-
titude of citizens, cruelly scattered and killed before
their time? Where is the abundance of riches ?
Where are the towers and edifices of Padua, its
houses and places, its palaces and pleasant habita-
tions? By wicked deeds they have been swept out
of Padua, out of the whole March of Treviso, and
not by barbarians or Jews, not by Medes or Sara-
cens, not by Scythians or Britons, not by Tartars
or Chaldeans."

If Ezzelino's cruelty stirred the people to revolt,
his treatment of the clergy and his protection of
heretics aroused the Papacy. On the death of the
Emperor, Innocent IV had fondly hoped that all
Lombardy would welcome the Church and make sub-
mission; on the contrary, Ezzelino and Pelavicini
showed themselves stronger than before, and there
was danger that all Lombardy would be lost to the
Church, not only politically, but also in matters of

402 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

religion. These Ghibelline chiefs laid heavy hands
on churchmen and church property, they chased
away unwelcome bishops and priests, they refused to
repress heresy, protected, heretics, and would not
suffer the inquisition to take its ferret ways. They
did not propose to persecute subjects who would
never desert them for the Church. Pelavicini was
bad, but Ezzelino was far worse. Ezzelino refused
the last rites to persons condemned to death; he
parted husbands from their wives and forced them
to marry other women ; he himself believed only in
astrology. Under him the fair region from Verona
to Padua was become a second Languedoc, a refuge
and breeding-place of heresy : and to the Church
heresy was far more dangerous than the Hohenstau-
fens ; they attacked her walls from without, but her-
esy sapped them silently and secretly within.

Matters had become too fearful to be borne. Pope
Innocent IV had proclaimed a crusade, and Alexan-
der IV took up the cry. He called on the cities and no-
bles of the north to take the field against this devil
incarnate, bade them assume the cross, and promised
the indulgences granted to crusaders that crossed the
sea. The faithful of the regions roundabout banded
together, nobles and gentles, burghers and peasants,
Brothers Minor, Dominicans, Benedictines, Cister-
cians, priests, all took the cross : —

Vexilla regis prodeunt
Fulget crucis mysterium, —

and they set forth " like the Children of Israel against
the Philistines." Success blessed their first campaign ;

MANFRED 403

they captured Padua. The messenger who bore the
evil tidings to Ezzelino was hanged on the spot ; and
of eleven thousand Paduans, whom he got into his
clutches, not two hundred ever went home to Padua.
This was not all ; Ezzelino and Uberto Pelavicini
having joined forces, defeated the crusaders and
made themselves masters of Brescia. This was a sad
blow ; but it may be, as Rolandino says, " the part
of divine mercy to remedy monstrous evils gradually,
to send deserved punishment in due time, and after
long waiting to allay grave anxiety almost as it were
by surprise." His theory found justification in the
immediate sequel. Ezzelino, too domineering to share
with Pelavicini, turned him out and kept the prize
for himself. In his exasperation Pelavicini made com-
mon cause with the Church party. Every man's hand
was now against Ezzelino, and King Manfred could
safely approve the confederates.

Ezzelino still bore himself as dauntlessly as the day
on which he struck down with his own sword one of
the Emperor's German knights who had laid violent
hands on an Italian lady ; he gathered his soldiers
together and watched the heavens. Then when the
signs were propitious, Sagittarius in the ascendant,
the sun in Virgo, the moon in Scorpio, Saturn in
Aquarius, Jupiter retroguardus in Libra, he started
his campaign, and the rival armies marched and
countermarched in the pleasant land through which
the Adda runs down from Lake Como to the Po.
During a skirmish an arrow struck Ezzelino in the
left foot. His soldiers were frightened, but not he :
"He hid the pain of his wound in his stout heart,

404 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

like a strenuous athlete who comes back hurt from
the arena and puts on a brave and spirited demean-
our so that those who have staked their hopes on
him shall not lose confidence." But nothing was of
avail, for " the hour was at hand which God himself
had provided from eternity for the safety of Lom-
bardy."

Ezzelino marched to the fatal crossing of the
Adda. If men could but foresee the future, says Ro-
landino (who, like the men of his time, saw strange
affinities between ideas where we can only see
wretched puns upon words), all Italy would have
longed for that crossing as all good men had longed
for the redemption of the first man Adam by the
cross of Christ ; and he also discovered a coincidence
of good omen in the names Adam and Adda. The
two armies joined battle ; fortune went against Ezze-
lino. His soldiers were scattered, and all his enemies
converging pressed towards the spot where he was,
"as all ponderable things converge and press towards
the centre of the earth." In such straits, with his
own people round him, the old warrior tried to make
his way to Bergamo, not as if in flight, but rather
as if the horses were proceeding hither or thither
careless of direction. But the Marquis of Este, feel-
ing that the end of a lifelong rivalry was at hand,
together with Uberto Pelavicini, Buoso da Dovara,
and all the chivalry of the Lombard plain, eager for
revenge, rushed in like dogs upon the quarry. One
soldier, burning with revenge, though Ezzelino was
defenceless, dealt him two or three blows upon the
head ; and " whoever it was [for Rolandino cannot

MANFRED 405

forbear his admiration of the old man's mettle] de-
served no praise, but rather the shame of a caitiff
act." The crowd pressed about, like birds of the
night, chattering, shrieking, threatening, to gaze upon
this man, horrible, terrible, and famous above all the
other princes of the world ; but Azzo of Este, Uberto
Pelavicini, Buoso da Dovara, and all the knights
assembled, would not permit so renowned a man to
be maltreated by the actions or words of the insist-
ent crowd. They bore him honourably to the tent of
Lord Buoso and gave him in charge of the best phy-
sicians. But in vain; Ezzelino, wounded or not, could
not have lived in captivity ; he died in a few days
and was buried with due honour.

As the Empire ended with Frederick, so the old
feudal sentiment of dependence upon the Empire
ended in Italy with Ezzelino. The other party chiefs,
like Uberto Pelavicini, Buoso da Dovara, Martino
della Torre of Milan, Ghiberto da Gente of Parma,
belong to the newer period coming in, when the
Empire had become an idea for the imagination to
play about rather than a practical political factor,
and petty tyrants set up their dynasties in the Lom-
bard cities not as integral parts of a great system
culminating in the Emperor, but as local seigneurs
each for himself. Ezzelino had much in common with
the men of this new type ; they were self-dependent,
individual, and he was the extreme type of individu-
ality pushed, except for this one tie with the Empire,
to its loneliest terms, a hero for Nietzsche. But with
this attitude towards the Empire, Ezzelino had a
touch of the romantic feelings that we associate with

406 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

the chivalric side of the feudal system. He had ideas
of honour, however hard it may be to trace them in
his doings; "it behooves us, he said, to live with
honour — vivere cum honore" whereas such an idea
never seriously crossed the minds of the men of the
newer type. He has a touch of kinship with the
spirit of Frederick Barbarossa; they belong to the
school summed up by Machiavelli.

Curiously enough, on Ezzelino's overthrow Uberto
Pelavicini established a redoubtable power in Lom-
bardy, stronger even than that which the Emperor
Frederick had exercised; he held do minion over Milan,
Cremona, Piacenza, Brescia, and Tortona. Nothing
could show better than this union of Milan and Cre-
mona under one lordship what strange bed-fellows the
course of Italian politics flung together. Nevertheless,
taking matters on a large sweep as we must, the sym-
pathies and general policy of the Lombard cities,
Guelf and Ghibelline, look comparatively stable.
Though lord of Milan, Pelavicini must certainly rank
as a Ghibelline chief. He was excommunicated by the
Church and on the best of terms with Manfred. Man-
fred wished him to bar the way against any invader —
Prince Edmund, perhaps — who should come to claim
the crown of Sicily, and Pelavicini wished Manfred's
aid against the Pope and Alphonso of Castile or any
possible Emperor who might invade Italy at the
Pope's bidding. The two were bound by the only
bond that held strong men in those days, the bond
of common interest.

The Ghibelline star was in the ascendant ; and
Manfred's hopes shone bright. Through his friend-

MANFRED 407

ship with Pelavicini he was a power in Lombardy;
he had strong friends in Piedmont; he had made
an alliance with Genoa, and a treaty with Venice.
And to crown his prosperous career came the great
Ghibelline victory at Montaperti, which compelled
the proud city of Florence to receive his royal lieuten-
ant and all Tuscany to submit to his will as if he were
Emperor.

It is now high time to turn to Tuscany, a province
which at about the end of Frederick's reign comes
forward into the main current of events.

CHAPTER XXVIH

TUSCANY (1200-1260)

Salntami Toscana,

quella clied 6 sovrana,

in cui regna tutta cortezia.

KINO ENZIO.
Greet Tuscany for me,
A very queen is she,
And in her reigns all courtesy.

IN early days Tuscany had been a marquisate.
The last marquis was the father of the Great Count-
ess Matilda ; and she inherited from him this pro-
vince and much broad territory besides. Matilda died
(1115) a few years after she had attended the cere-
monies at the duomo of Modena ; and on her death
the cities that had been under her dominion became
to all intents and purposes free and independent.
The Papacy and the Empire both claimed to be the
rightful heir of her scattered domains; and in the
disputes between the two, the cities found their op-
portunity. The marquisate continued, nominally at
least, to be a fief of the Empire, and imperial govern-
ors rode down across the Apennines into the valley
of the Arno, but they accomplished little. Under
the stimulus of self-government, manufacture and
trade grew apace, and their growth shaped and de-
termined Tuscan history. Economic forces, pushing
their way to sunshine and air, displaced the old
order. Produce demanded a safe road to market.

TUSCANY 409

The country barons, perched on hilltops, like eagles
in their eyries, treated high-road, ford, and moun-
tain pass as opportunities to levy what tolls they
pleased. As soon as trade reached adolescence, the
old system became intolerable. The early history of
the cities is little more than a record of feats of
arms against these barons ; every spring or of tener
the citizens sallied forth to lay siege to a castle or
scale the walls of a fortified grange.

In the course of time the barons of the country
roundabout were compelled to take up their abode
within the walls, for part of the year at least, and
become citizens. These unwilling immigrants natur-
ally contracted friendships with the aristocracy of
the city ; together they made the patrician class,
and clung to the feudal system. Next in the social
scale, the principal burghers — bankers and merchants
— made common cause with the lesser nobility, and
constituted the upper middle class; below them came
the bulk of the middle class — artisans, craftsmen
and the lesser traders ; at the bottom were the labour-
ing class which possessed little or no political rights.

While these distinctions of rank and wealth di-
vided society horizontally, as it were, into classes, a
political division cut athwart class distinctions and
divided each city into two political parties. It is
hard to say what started political disagreements;
nobles fell out with nobles, neighbours with neigh-
bours. They were all quick in quarrel. Men joined
this party or that for local or personal reasons, but
having become members of a party they adopted all
its cries and shibboleths. Politics were based on

410 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

appetite. A sea-coast city, like Pisa, which had re-
ceived generous charters from the Emperor and
hoped for special privileges in the Sicilian ports,
professed loyalty to the Empire. An inland city,
like Florence, that feared lest she should be forced
to give up imperial territory which she had seized
upon during the Empire's weakness, turned to the
Pope for support. The smaller towns sided with
either power that would aid them against their am-
bitious neighbours. The baronage, always at enmity
with the cities, naturally inclined to the Empire.
And so in Tuscany, very much after the same
manner as in Lombardy, two great political parties
ranged themselves against one another. All the
cities, however, as well as all the barons, recognized
that as a matter of political theory they were parts
of the Empire, and in times of peace rendered lip
service to imperial authority.

The Empire not only claimed ultimate sovereignty
over the cities, but an immediate jurisdiction over
the small places and the country districts in between
them; and during Frederick's reign the imperial
lieutenants exercised authority over these domains,
as well as certain sovereign rights over the cities,
such, for instance, as imposing podestas of the Em-
peror's choice. When, however, the imperial power
was in abeyance, as after Frederick's death or during
his wars with the Papacy, the cities at once forgot
all memory of feudal allegiance, fought one another
for the strips of imperial possessions that lay between
them, and the loveliest province in the garden of
the Empire was rent into angry pieces. From the

TUSCANY 411

mountains to the sea a score of petty sovereignties
spent blood and treasure in heroic efforts to increase
their territories.

The province of Tuscany is separated from Lom-
bardy by the curving chain of the Apennines. After
the traveller has crossed the pass near Pontremoli
on the way southwest from Parma, he has done
with waveless plains and descends into a lovely land
of mountains, hills, and valleys, of bank and brae.
Here the Arno for a hundred miles and more winds
its many-coloured way westward to the sea. In those
days it ran by noble forests as well as castles and
towered cities. Dante thought but ill of the people
it passed by: for, according to him, from the sources
of the Arno in the Apennines until the river renders
up its waters to the Mediterranean, all men shun
virtue as they shun a snake. The Tuscans are so
vile that it seems as if Circe had foully metamor-
phosed them. The river first flows past the inhabit-
ants of the Casentino, " dirty hogs more worthy of
acorns than of food made for human use;" lower
down it comes upon the people of Arezzo, "curs
that snarl more than their power warrants," and
turns its course westward to avoid them; it then
passes the accursed town of the Florentines, " dogs
that behave like wolves/' and descends at last to the
citizens of Pisa, " foxes so full of cunning that they
are afraid of nothing " (Purg. xiv).

But the outside of things, whether created by
nature or the hand of man, from the leaning tower
of Pisa to the gracious foothills of the Apennines,
tell nothing of this depravity ; sunshine and cloud,

412 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

stone pine and flowing river, are in conspiracy to
make us think that even in the thirteenth century
Tuscany was not wholly unlike the earthly paradise ;
and every Tuscan city has now, and probably had
then, her own way of making the traveller believe
that it was for him rather than for any one else that
she had built her churches and her palaces, her
fountains and her towers. In all the Empire there
was no fairer province, and we should be far from
the truth if we accepted Dante's angry words with-
out qualification.

Arezzo, once one of the old Etruscan cities, is
memorable to sonneteers and lovers as the birthplace
of Petrarch, and to school-boys as that of Maecenas
" descended from ancestral kings," the friend and
patron of Horace. In the first half of our century
she had no permanent political relations ; she took
podestas from Florence, Pisa, Perugia, Orvieto, Vi-
terbo, Rome, Milan, Bologna, and Modena. And,
though she opened her gates to the Emperors that
came, Otto IV and Frederick II, she exhibited rather
scant loyalty. When Frederick left after a brief visit
in the troubled year, 1240, he railed against her:
" Store-house of honey ! — bitter as gall ; a new
people shall come and possess this land." Of her
sister cities the nearest, as usual, were her worst
foes. During the reign of the Emperor Frederick
Siena was her chief enemy, but after Frederick's
death Florence took Siena's place. And with regard
to internal politics, in Arezzo, as in every other city,
there were always two quarrelling parties ; sometimes
one, sometimes the other, was in power.

TUSCANY 413

But Arezzo has a special interest as a place where
the arts were cultivated. Margheritone, celebrated in
his day, who painted many portraits of St. Francis,
as well as Fra Guittone, head of the Tuscan school
of poetry that succeeded the Sicilian school, was
born there. Fra Ristoro, a learned man of scientific
tastes who wrote a kind of encyclopedia on the
Composition of the World (1282) was another
citizen. So was the alchemist, Griff olino (Inf. xxix-
xxx). And there was a group of virtuosi in Arezzo,
whose enthusiasm for art tells us more about the
first dawn of the Renaissance than all the chroniclers.
Fra Ristoro has left an account of them in connec-
tion with a discovery of antique vases: "These are
made of terra cotta, delicate as wax, perfect in form
and of every variety. And on them are drawn or
engraved all sorts of plants, with leaves and flowers,
all kinds of animals that you can think of, wonderful
in every respect, and so perfect that they surpass the
work of nature. Two colours were used, blue and red,
chiefly red ; and these colours were luminous and very
delicate, and so excellent, that though they were under-
ground, the earth did them no hurt. They were found
as fresh in colour as if but recently made. . .. I ex-
amined many of these vases ; some of the figures on
them were slim, some fat, one laughed, another
cried, one was old, another a baby, one nude, one
draped, one in armour, another not, one afoot, one
on horseback ; and there were battles and attacks,
admirable in every detail; combats of fishes, birds
and other creatures, all wonderful. There were scenes
of hunting, hawking, and fishing, so good in every re-

414 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

spect that one cannot imagine it. ... A large part of
a vase came into my possession on which the designs
were so natural and delicate, that when the connois-
seurs saw them they screamed and shouted aloud for
joy, and were quite beside themselves, and became
perfectly dumbfounded ; but the ignoramuses would
have broken it to pieces, and flung them away.
When such fragments came into the possession of a
sculptor, a designer, or of some one who knew about
them, he preserved them as if they were sacred,
wondering how any men could in a vase, by colour
and design, have wrought such delicate art. They
all said, ( These artists were divine, or else these
vases came down from heaven ' ; for they could not
understand how such vases could be made. It was
surmised that this noble delicacy in art had been
divinely granted to the city, on account of the
noble situation in which the city stood, because noble
artists delight in a noble land and a noble land de-
mands noble artists."

Pisa, at the Arno's mouth, was one of the three
great seaboard towns of Italy, and in the common
judgment she and Florence were the two noblest
cities of Tuscany. Her fame spread wherever traf-
fickers sailed, from the Phoenician coast —

To where the Atlantic raves
Outside the western straits.

Her merchant galleys and her fighting ships were
familiar sights off the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, and
Sicily, or riding at anchor in the ports of Tripoli,
Constantinople and Acre. Powerful abroad she made
herself beautiful at home. She, too, cultivated the

TUSCANY 415

arts. Several Pisans belonged to the Sicilian school
of poetry. Giunta Pisano is one of the earliest paint-
ers whose names have come down to us. Bonanno,
a worker in bronze, had been chosen to cast the doors
of the cathedral at Monreale. And when the Do-
minicans at Parma wished for a bell that should be
heard as far as Reggio, they employed a bell-maker
of Pisa. But neither in excellence nor in renown
could any of these arts match with Pisan architect-
ure. There is no group of sister buildings in all
Europe, — cathedral, baptistery, and bell-tower, —
comparable with hers ; nor is there any building west
of the Parthenon that fetches its colour from fairy-
land so direct as they, when their marble walls shine
in the setting sun with a tender golden glow, as if
the imprisoned genius of light were trying to force
his way through alabaster doors. One thinks of Pisa
as once a mermaiden, combing her golden hair with
a golden comb upon a summer's day on the banks of
the Arno, and metamorphosed by some enamoured
god into a beautiful city out of revenge for her dis-
dain. Pisa, like Siena, was steadfastly loyal to the
Empire, not from sentiment, but because she desired
privileges in Sicily, and because her rivalry with
Genoa constrained her to take the side opposed to
that which Genoa took. While the Hohenstaufens
prospered she prospered, but after their overthrow
her fortunes sank before the rising power of Florence
and the fierce enmity of Genoa; for, as Bro. Salim-
bene says in his memoirs, " There is a natural hatred
between men and snakes, dogs and wolves, horses
and griffins, and so there is between Pisa and Genoa,

416 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

between Pisa and Lucca, and between Pisa and
Florence."

To the north of Pisa, barely ten miles in a straight
line, but separated by Monte Giuliano (Inf. xxxm,
30),-

per che i Pisan veder Lucca non ponno, —
lies Lucca, a city that casts a particular spell upon
the traveller. The cathedral of St. Martin's is not
beautiful like that at Pisa, but its picturesque, irreg-
ular fagade, with its great arches cramped and
squeezed by the massive campanile,, and its pretty
arcades that rise in tiers from the portico to the roof,
have a familiar, friendly air, not untouched by sim-
ple nobility, and with a special persuasiveness induce
one to linger. The round apse, too, is full of charm.
In fact the building is well worthy, in its simplicity
and dignity, to house H Santo Volto, the sacred cru-
cifix carved in wood by Nicodemus, so the story ran,
on which the people of Lucca called for help in time of
trouble. No other church in Lucca has as much exterior
charm as the duomo; but San Frediano, if on the
outside it lacks in grace and in the noble effect of
good proportions, has a serene and massive solemnity
within that no church in Tuscany and few churches
elsewhere can match. There is a stoic nobleness in
the long nave that runs, unvexed by transept, to the
apse, and in the walls that mount solid and severe
from the arcades of the nave to the roof, broken
only by small clerestorey windows; and these stark,
bald, walls in their archaic simplicity are of so stern
a grandeur that the church would seem the habita-
tion of some unmerciful deity, if it were not that

TUSCANY 417

the arcades themselves are light and full of grace,
and that the floor as it approaches the altar mounts
one step, then, farther on, four more, and then
three and three again, as if, gathering courage as it
went, it rose in adoration under the mystical impulse
of a great yearning.

To-day the cathedral, San Frediano, San Michele,
and their sister churches, seem what they are, mere
monuments; but in those days they were places of
social gathering. All Lucca was sociable, fond of
seeing what was going on. And the churches were
the indoor places for people to meet, just as the
piazza was the outdoor place. Almost the only music
was heard in the churches, and the people of Lucca
were very fond of music. At the Franciscan monas-
tery there, Bro. Vita made a great reputation as a
singer. He sang most sweetly. " When he wished to
sing [I quote Bro. Salimbene again] the nightingale,
trilling in the hedge or on the blackberry bush, gave
way, listened intently, and would not stir from its
place ; afterwards it would resume its song, and so
the two, nightingale and monk, sang in turn their
sweet, enchanting songs." The churches were the art
galleries, for all the sculpture and painting were
there ; they were the theatres, for such theatrical
performances as there were — little plays on sacred
subjects, — were given in them under the charge of
the priests. Magistrates, for lack of a public hall,
sometimes exercised their functions there; guilds
often met in them ; and general meetings of the
citizens were held in the cathedral. Ecclesiastical
festivals brought the churches familiarly into do-

418 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

mestic life ; and the common people spent more than
half their summer evenings on the piazza in front
of the duomo. Patriotism, pride, and a fond affec-
tion for familiar things, clustered about the famous
churches of every town, and made them more than
home to the citizens.

Pistoia, halfway between Lucca and Florence, but
a little to the north, sitting at the feet of the Apen-
nines, was Ghibelline, for the simple reason that her
two neighbours, Lucca and Florence, were Guelf.
In those days, when her monuments were young, —
her cathedral, her mighty tower, Sant' Andrea, San
Bartolommeo in Pantano and San Giovanni Fuor-
civitas, — the city, so far as the builder's art could
make it, must have been, if not charming, at least
picturesque ; and the zest for life and fierce power
of hate of her people in those keen days gave her a
quality of her own. Dante, whose judgments often
seem so harsh to us, for our dull consciences are
seldom roused to more than placid disapprobation,
is at least just and true in his measure of the thrills
of life ; his fine spirit was tuned to the electrical
animation of mere living and his records of life's
intensity are the truest we have. But, except in his
measures of the vibration of passion, he was as un-
just to Pistoia as he was to Arezzo, Florence, and
Pisa, and all the country through which the Arno
runs. In the circle of thieves, beset with serpents,
most horrible, Dante met — and the meeting was for
the sake of an opportunity to berate Pistoia — a soul
who in life had stolen the treasure of a church (Inf.
xxiv, 124-26): —

TUSCANY 419

" Vita bestial mi piacque, e non umana,

si come a mul ch' io f ui ; son Vanni Fucci
bestia, e Pistoia mi f u degna tana ; "

" Bestial life pleased me, not human,

Like the mule that I was ; I am Vanni Fucci,
A beast, and Pistoia was a fit den for me."

Dante was so passionately sensitive to passing emo-
tion that each moment of life came before him as
part of eternity, charged with the awful seriousness
of everlasting things, and every petty sin dragged at
its heels an infinite consequence of evil and woe.

Ahi Pistoia, Pistoia, che non stanzi
d' incenerarti, si che piu non duri !

(Inf. xxv, 10-11.)

Ah, Pistoia, Pistoia, why dost thou not resolve

To turn thyself to ashes, so that thou shalt exist no more !

It would be fanciful to suppose that all thirteenth
century Italy shared Dante's passion ; but it would
be equally wrong to suppose that Dante was wholly
apart from other men and that their pulses beat as
temperately as ours. The world was young, life was
running strong, every to-morrow was big with possi-
bilities, energy seemed to hold all glory in its hand;
and the people in these little towns were aquiver
with excitement. The Divine Comedy is not merely
the summing-up of mediasval religion, or the expres-
sion of mediaeval belief in moral law, it is the index
of the human passions of thirteenth century Italy ;
beyond comparison, it is the most important histori-
cal record of the time.

West of Arezzo and about thirty-five miles due

420 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

south of Florence lay Siena, the most gifted and
most charming of all the hill towns of Italy, as loyal
to the Empire as Cremona or Pavia, and as proud as
the proudest city of them all. She, too, in those
days was the gayest of the gay. There the Brigata
Spendereccid, the Company of Spendthrifts,—
Stricca (Inf. xxix), "who knew how to make his
expenses moderate" Niccolo, the gourmet, who in-
vented a famous dish flavoured with cloves, Caccia
of Asciano, who squandered vineyard and forest,
Abbagliato, proud of his wit, Lano (Inf. xm), who
finally took his own life, and their comrades, —
sowed the wild crop of golden oats that brought
forth a harvest to be reaped in hell.

Or f u giammai

gente si vana come la sanese ?
certo non la francesca si d'assai.

(Inf. xxix, 121-23.)

Now was there ever
People so light-minded as the Sienese ?
Certainly the French not near so much.

Siena had her serious side as well, and she meant to
prove it to the world by her new cathedral.

In ancient times, so the story went, on the top of
one of the hilly summits of the city, there had been
a temple dedicated to Minerva. When Siena became
Christian a church built in honour of the Virgin
Mary had succeeded to the temple. This church had
long been too small to hold all the people of the
city, and it was determined to build in its stead a
new cathedral. This was begun before 1245. There
is no record of any definite design and none of any

TUSCANY 421

architect. The cathedral was the work of the city
very much as the basilica at Assisi, begun at about
the same time, was the work of Bro. Elias. There
was a master in charge of the works, there was a
committee of nine elected by the several districts
of the city to consult with the master and determine
what had best be done, there was a committee of
three, appointed by the great council, to act as
treasurer ; the administrative officers of the city
were charged with making all needful provisions
for the work, and the podesta was sworn to see
that the master of the works and the committees
performed their duties. The cost was to be met by
various means : the city itself should pay the salaries
of ten master workmen, and carry the marble from
the quarry ; owners of beasts of burden should fetch
two loads of marble every year ; subject towns, vil-
lages and barons were to make offerings of money,
candles or wax; and every inhabitant, between the
ages of eighteen and seventy, must offer a wax candle
on the vigil of the Madonna of the Assumption.
These candles were sold and the proceeds paid into
the church treasury. Besides the receipts from these
imposts, the bishop and clergy contributed, while
the faithful made oblations or bequeathed legacies.
The people, urged on by zeal for the glory of the
Virgin and by desire to rival Pisa and outdo Flor-
ence, pushed the work apace, and by 1259 the nave
was finished. The organic construction follows the
general method of Lombard ecclesiastical architect-
ure ; but in the ornamental details a touch of the
Gothic style shows itself. This Gothic influence,

422 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

feeble as it was, could not have come in any
direct channel from France, for the staunch imperial
city would have rejected any such interference of
an alien race. It probably came by way of the
neighbouring monastery of San Galgano, for the
Gothic style had been brought there from the
southern monastery of Fossanova by Cistercian
monks; and at this time, when the main structure of
the cathedral was definitely determined, a monk
from San Galgano, Fra Melano, was master of the
works, and later other monks from there succeeded
to his office. However that may be, while Fra
Melano was in charge the Gothic influence must
have been hardly perceptible; the decoration of fin-
ials and gables belongs to a later date.

The building was not very well done; perhaps
there were too many committees of citizens with a
right to- intermeddle. Some critics said that the
vaults were cracking and would fall. All the master
workmen were consulted; they reported that the
alarm was unfounded, that the vaults need not be
taken down, because the new adjoining vaults would
strengthen them. By this time Florence and her
Guelf allies menaced the city, so that the building
must have been delayed for a time ; but the war was
quickly ended by the victory of Montaperti, and the
work went on again. A couple of years later there
are records of work done on the roof, and in 1264
the cupola was finished. The interior seems to testify
to the agitated times through which the city was
passing, for there are many little irregularities in
the piers, in the curves and angles of the vaulting

TUSCANY 423

ribs, and most of all in the cupola itself. These fre-
quent irregularities may be due to subtle art, per-
haps to carelessness, or perhaps to the changing
tastes of the citizens' committees that succeeded one
another rapidly; they give a picturesque and fanci-
ful appearance, but the alternate courses of black
and white marble require a special and peculiar taste.
The front of the cathedral was a plain brick wall,
awaiting marble decoration, for according to the
Italian fashion the facade was mere ornament and had
no organic part in the construction of the edifice.
Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the cathedral of
Siena was proof of a rich and proud commonwealth
and of the character and energy of its citizens.

Though devoted to the Empire, Siena was no
friend to the feudal baronage : she was a commercial
town, her aristocracy was chiefly composed of bank-
ers and traders. The Buonsignori, Cacciaconti,
Squarcialupi, Tolomei, and Piccolomini had financial
and commercial relations of great consequence with
France and England. During the pontificate of
Gregory IX, some of her bankers, for instance
Solafica Angiolieri, grandfather of the poet Cecco
Angiolieri, handled part of the papal funds ; and in
England, representatives of the great Sienese houses
received and transmitted revenues collected for the
popes, and incidentally obtained large gains by put-
ting their own money out at usury, for in England
the rate was high.

With Siena, as with all other trading towns, the
first great need had been to sweep away from the
neighbourhood of her gates the feudal barons who

424 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

infested the roads and laid toll on passing merchants.
Chief of these feudal barons were the Aldobran-
deschi, whose seat was to the south at Santa Fiora,
in the Tuscan Apennines. Their dominion extended
westward past Campagnatico and Grosseto to the
sea, and eastward commanded the high-road to Rome.
They reckoned their castles and strongholds by the
hundred, and maintained the predatory habits of
mediaeval nobles in all pristine simplicity. By con-
stant guerilla war these turbulent barons to the south
were muzzled ; but the warfare to the north against
the rising greatness of Florence was more serious.
Disagreements as to dominion, rivalry in trade, con-
tention for control of the high-road that led to Rome,
the leaning of one to the Empire and of the other
to the Church, maintained a state of mutual hatred
and of frequent war.

In domestic affairs at Siena, as elsewhere, wealth
determined political power ; little by little traders
raised themselves to an equality with the landed
baronage. By 1240 the chief body in the govern-
ment, the Council of Twenty-four, was evenly divided
between nobles and burghers. The two political par-
ties were called the Milites, Knights, and the Popolo,
the People; but these names are misleading, for
political divisions did not coincide with class dis-
tinctions. It often happened that aristocrats, like
Provenzano Salvani who rose to almost supreme
power, were on the People's side, and that rich
burghers and many men of the lower classes sided
with the Knights. A year or two after the battle of
Montaperti the government stood on a broader base

TUSCANY 425

than before, but it remained staunchly aristocratic.
The Council of the Bell, a large body of three hun-
dred members or more, became the main organ of
administration and legislation ; while two great guilds,
the Bankers and the Retail Traders, had a special
share in the government, their consuls being ex offi-
do members of the Council of the Bell, and of the
Committee on Legislation. Siena has been called a
city of shop-keepers, but the government was in the
hands of the aristocracy of finance.

Siena was a bold and proud city ; both she and
Pisa would have laughed with incredulous scorn at
any prophecy that they should both become tribu-
tary to their hated neighbour.

CHAPTER XXIX

FLORENCE

Ai dolze e gaja terra fiorentina !
f ontana di valore e di piagenza,
fiore de F altre, Fiorenza !
qualunque a piii savere ti tene reina ;
f ormata fue di Roma tua semenza,
e da Dio solo data la dotriua.

CHIARO DAVANZATI.

Alas ! Sweet and gay Florentine land !

Fountain of valour and of pleasantness,

Flower of all others, Florence !

Whoever hath most wit holds thee for queen ;

Thy origin was wrought by Rome,

And thy genius given by God himself.

NONE of the Tuscan cities, not Siena crowned with
towers, nor Pisa with her marble beauty and her
adventurous traffickers, can hope to rival Florence,
Rome's most famous and most beautiful daughter.
Her leadership was not in the arts. The baptistery
and San Miniato, with all their feminine charm, can-
not be put in the same rank with the edifices at Pisa;
she had no painters, and no sculptors, of note. She
had, indeed, produced poets in abundance, but none
of conspicuous talents. Her virtue lay in her energy,
her industry, her intellectual curiosity, her self-con-
fidence, her optimism, and her large ambitions. Her
people were shrewd, quick-witted, gay and jovial.
Friar Salimbene, who was well acquainted with half
the cities of Italy and France, can never say enough
of their gibes and bursts of merriment.

FLORENCE 427

But notwithstanding her joy in living, her intel-
lectual curiosity and her interest in poetry, the most
significant circumstance in Florence was the growth
of wealth. Production increased, the population mul-
tiplied ; many new processes in manufacturing were
devised; efficiency and economy were introduced;
the system of banking was improved and expanded.
Experiments of many kinds, many happy inventions,
preceded so much success. But little record of all
this industry, of the lives of merchants, artisans, and
inventors, remains. There are a few feudal grants,
a few deeds of conveyance, books of mercantile ac-
counts, minutes of expenses, that bear witness to the
daily affairs of bargain and sale, of warehouse and
counting-room ; but for the most part the chroniclers
and historians are taken up with war, and in partic-
ular with the strife between the two great political
parties. Politics were almost synonymous with war.

In the city of Florence this division into parties was
suddenly lighted up, at least according to Giovanni
Villani, the historian, by a romantic tragedy. In the
year 1215, about the time when young Frederick II
was on his way to be crowned King of the Romans
at Aachen, and King John of England was in mo-
mentous conference with his barons at Runnymede,
a young gentleman of Florence, Buondelmonte de'
Buondelmonti, was betrothed to a girl of the Amidei
family, who were of kin to the renowned Uberti, the
most powerful family in the city. Unluckily for
Florence, a match-making mother, Lady Gualdrada
Donati, persuaded the fickle young fellow to jilt the
girl and marry her own beautiful daughter. It was a

428 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

churlish and dangerous act on his part. The Amidei
were people of consequence : —

La casa di cbe nacque il vostro fleto,

per lo giusto disdegno che v' ha morti

e posto fine al vostro viver lieto,
era onorata ed essa e suoi consorti.

O Buondelmonte, quanto inal f uggisti

le nozze sue per gli altrui comfort! !

(Par. xvi, 136-41.)

The house of which was born your weeping,

(Because of the righteous indignation which slew you
And put an end to your joyous life)

Was honoured, both it and its allies.

Oh Buondelmonte, how wrongfully thou fledst
Marriage into it at the persuasion of another !

The kinsmen of the jilted girl took great offence,
and met together to decide what should be done.
Mosca de' Lamberti said, "a thing done is finished."
Down in the eighth circle of Hell, where lie Mo-
hammed, Bertran de Born and other sowers of dis-
cord, Dante met a ghost, with both hands cut off,
waving his bloody stumps, who cried : —

" Ricordera' ti anche del Mosca,
che dissi, lasso ! * Capo ha cosa f atta',
che fu il mal seme della gente tosca."

(Inf. xxvra, 106-08.)

" Thou wilt also remember Mosca,
Who said (alas !) * A thing done is finished '
Which was the seed of evil for the Tuscan people."

The others assented to what Mosca said, and on
Easter morning they lay in wait by the statue of
Mars at the head of the Ponte Vecchio ; and when

FLORENCE 429

young Buondelmpnte, dressed like a bridegroom all
in white, came riding across on his white palfrey,
they dashed out. Schiatta degli Uberti struck him
from his horse, Mosca and Lambertuccio degli
Amidei threw themselves upon him, and others be-
sides shared in the murder. So, anger and vengeance
widened the split between the political factions. The
Buondelmonti and their friends ranged themselves
with the Church party, while the Uberti and other
patrician families drew closer together on the side
of the Empire. It was in Florence, according to
Salimbene, that the names Guelf and Ghibelline were
adopted. He says: "In Florence the Church party
was called Guelf and the imperial party Ghibelline ;
and from these two factions the parties in all Tus-
cany have been named and are so named up to the
present time, and all have drunk from the cup of
the wrath of God, and have drunk it to the dregs."
It must be remembered that political parties then,
as political parties do now, found their active mem-
bers among those whom we call politicians, or else
among the men who profited by the success of the
party, and that the term Guelf party, for instance,
usually refers to the active members of the party
and not to all : when we read a statement in Vil-
lani's history that the Guelfs were expelled from a
certain city, it simply refers to the men of political
consequence in the party.

From the time of the Buondelmonte murder till
after the Council of Lyons (1245), when the Em-
peror turned his attention to the city, the politics of
Florence both at home and abroad concerned them-

430 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

selves mainly with manufacture and commerce.
Feuds between families, jealousies between ambi-
tious noblemen, glitter with dramatic glamour and
divert the attention from the workings of economic
forces, but those forces pursued their course steadily
both within the walls and without. The guilds grew
in wealth and power; the bankers extended their
financial operations far and wide ; the wool mer-
chants imported raw woollen cloth from Holland and
Flanders, dressed it, dyed it, and sent it out again
east, west, and north; other trades followed their
lead. Little by little these guilds grew to be the
main strength of the state, and more and more gave
an anti-feudal complexion to the city's policy.

Florence's two principal antagonists were Siena
and Pisa. To the south Siena was her competitor
for the possession of various castles and villages that
lay between them. To the west, Pisa was mistress of
the sea and wished to add to her maritime commerce
the command of inland trade ; whereas Florence, mis-
tress of the inland trade, wished free access to the
sea. Pistoia, too, from jealousies bred of neighbour-
hood and conscious inferiority, was hostile to Flor-
ence. The consequence was a long series of petty
wars. The headings of Giovanni Villani's chapters
read : How the first war began between the Pisans
and the Florentines ; How the Pisans were defeated
by the Florentines at Bosco castle; How the Flor-
entines sent an army against festoia and took the
castle of Carmignano ; How thXFlorentines went
to war with the Sienese; and so on. These wars ter-
minated to the honour of Florence, for though the

FLORENCE 431

political parties in the city were sharply marked, and
there was no love lost between the patrician fam-
ilies and the trading class, nevertheless all acted to-
gether as fellow-citizens against a common enemy.

The course of Florentine history was rudely dis-
turbed at the beginning of 1248. The Emperor,
furious with the Pope, and wishing to strike a hard
blow at the Church party in Tuscany, intrigued
with the Uberti, urged them to seize the city, and
promised aid. The Uberti, ever ready for a fray,
gave the signal to the Ghibellines, and attacked the
Guelfs in every district of the city. For three days
the fighting kept up; mangonels discharged bolts
and stones from the towers, archers shot their ar-.
rows from window and roof, and round the barri-
cades in the streets men fought on foot with sword
and pike. At last the promised imperial forces came,
Frederick of Antioch, one of the Emperor's bastard
sons, brought up sixteen hundred German horse,
and decided the victory. The Guelfs fled and left
the city in possession of their enemies. But the
rule of the Ghibelline nobles was short; on the
Emperor's death the people opened the gates to the
exiled Guelfs, and, for the moment making common
cause with them, set up a government known as the
Primo Popolo, the first popular government, be-
cause the people, or rather the upper middle class,
shared the power with the nobility.

The constitution of the Primo Popolo was some-
what like the constitution of Bologna after the pop-
ular revolt in 1228, but Florence preceded Bologna
by several years in the appointment of a captain of

432 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

the People. As in Bologna, the government was a
sort of partnership between the commune and the
confederated guilds. The podesta with his two coun-
cils, representing the aristocratic party of the old
regime, formed the Commune; while the captain of
the People, with his two councils, representing the
men of business, constituted the People. Control of
the soldiery was divided. The podesta commanded
the cavalry, composed of knights and gentlemen,
who for convenience may be called the regular army,
while the captain of the People commanded the
trainbands. To complete the government, there was
a board of Ancients, and a privy council; and finally
a parliament of the enfranchised citizens, which
sometimes had the privilege of voting aye or no on
important matters.

The Primo Popolo made a great name for itself.
The new government drew upon the energies and
abilities of the trading classes as well as of the no-
bility, and raised Florence to the first place among
Tuscan cities. It extended its dominion over castles
and towns near and far; it brought Pisa and Siena to
terms. It began the palace of the podesta, now the
Bargello, it built the bridge, Ponte alia Trinita, it
erected walls to defend the district across the Arno ;
and achieved its most enduring title to fame by
coining the florin, a new coin of pure gold, with the
lily of Florence stamped on one side and St. John
Baptist on the other. The swelling trade of Florence
soon sent these florins far and wide. Commerce
needed such a coin and even rival cities made use of
it, to the proud satisfaction of all patriotic Floren-

FLORENCE 433

tines, as this anecdote, told by Giovanni Villani,
shows : " Some florins were brought to the King of
Tunis, who was a wise and worthy man ; he was much
pleased with them, tested them, found them of the
finest gold and praised them very much. He had his
interpreters explain to him the stamp and the words,
and learned that they were 'St. John Baptist' and,
on the lily side, 'Florentia.' Seeing that it was the
money of Christians, he sent for Pisan merchants
and asked them, what rank this Florentia, which had
coined these florins, held among Christian cities.
The Pisans answered contemptuously : ' They are our
inland Arabs/ which was tantamount to saying,
'Our men of the wilderness/ The king remarked
shrewdly: 'It does not seem money of Arabs; and you,
Pisans, what gold coins have you? ' At that they were
ashamed and had nothing to say. Then he asked if
there was any merchant from Florence about, and a
man from Oltrarno [the district across the Arno]
was found, Perla Balducci, a very intelligent man.
The king questioned him concerning the condition
and position of Florentines, whom the Pisans made
out to be their Arabs ; and he answered sensibly,
describing the greatness and magnificence of Flor-
ence, and how Pisa in comparison was not half of
Florence in power and in people, that the Pisans did
not have any gold money, and that the florin was a
sign of the superiority of the Florentines and of the
many victories they had won against the Pisans. At
this the Pisans were put to shame, and the king, on
account of the florins and of what our intelligent
citizen had said, gave the Florentines free entry and

434 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

permitted them to have business houses and a church
in Tunis and the same privileges as the Pisans. And
I learned this fact from Perla aforesaid, a trustworthy
man, whom I met in the office of the Priory in the
year of Our Lord, 1316, he being ninety years old,
and in good health and possession of his faculties."
Indeed the florin at this time sums up the history of
Florence.

The city was nothing like as large as it is now.
The walls ran well within the sites of Santa Croce to
the east, of the Palazzo Riccardi to the north, and
of Santa Maria Novella to the west ; the main city,
excluding Oltrarno, measured about a thousand yards
east and west by eight hundred north and south. In
poca piazza fa mirabil cose: within this little space
the people of Florence were destined to achieve a
glory second only to the glory of Athens.

For ten years the Primo Popolo ran its brilliant
career. Then the see-saw of politics shifted its bal-
ance under the rising fortunes of King Manfred.
The bold Uberti, restless intriguers, and their fellow
nobles, conspired to overthrow the popular govern-
ment ; the plot was discovered, one of the Uberti was
killed in fight, another caught and beheaded., and
the rest with their adherents fled to Siena. Here, in
contravention of a treaty between Florence and Siena,
they were hospitably received by the haughty Ghi-
belline leader, Provenzano Salvani. This provocation
was hardly needed to prick the two cities to a quar-
rel, for war was the normal relation between them.
Each side raided the territories of the other. The
Florentines in one foray captured the royal banner

FLOKENCE 435

of King Manfred, who had sent some troopers to
Siena. The Sienese gave back as good as they got,
at least so their report went. A member of the rich
mercantile house of the Cacciaconti wrote to his fac-
tor in France that the Florentines were afraid : " We
wish you to know, Giacomo [he writes], that we are
put to great expense and ado, on account of the war
with Florence. It will make a big hole in our purse,
but we will scotch Florence so that we shall never
have to pay attention to her again, if God will only
keep King Manfred from harm, God bless him. ... In
the city are eight hundred horsemen to bring death
and destruction to Florence. And know that they are
so afraid of us and of our cavalry that they all disap-
pear, and no matter where they are never wait to meet
us. When we marched to Colle, they withdrew horse
and foot as far as Barberino ; but when we had com-
pleted our devastations and had returned to Siena, they
advanced again. As soon as we heard this, all went
out, cavalry and infantry and marched against them.
We proceeded as far as Poggibonsi ; there we learned
that they had fled and gone away. We sent our in-
fantry back to Siena, but our cavalry went in pursuit,
and chased them like cowards from hill to hill, and
we went burning and ravaging within four miles of
Florence. So you can see that they are afraid of us,
and you may be sure that this year, please God, we
will give them the malanno [a fearful curse]."

These forays were of little military consequence;
both sides prepared for a great battle. The Sienese
obtained reinforcements from Pisa and other friendly
towns, together with the eight hundred German

436 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

cavalry sent by King Manfred. The burghers of
Florence called on all the Guelf towns of Tuscany
to send aid. Two Guelf nobles, Count Guido Guerra,
almost the only member of his house to espouse the
Guelf cause, and Tegghiaio Aldobrandi, spoke loudly
against the expedition, for they understood the
great superiority of the German mercenaries and
the Ghibelline Knights over the Florentine militia;
but in vain. Every city of Tuscany under Guelf
dominion, — Lucca, Pistoia, Prato, Volterra, San
Miniato, San Gimignano, — sent up its tale of men;
Perugia from Umbria, Orvieto from St. Peter's
Patrimony, and even Bologna from beyond the
Apennines, furnished troops. There was scarce a
family in Florence that did not contribute one or
two men at the least. Dante's uncle, Brunetto di
Bellincione, Coppo di Marcovaldo, the painter, the
poets Chiaro Davanzati and Pallamidesse fought in
the battle. There were said to be three thousand
horse and thirty thousand foot. The Ghibellines
were greatly outnumbered, but Count Aldobrandino
of Santa Fiora, Count Giordano, King Manfred's
cousin, Farinata degli Uberti, head of the family,
and Provenzano Salvani, was each a host in himself,
and the Ghibelline nobles were far better disciplined
than the Florentine troops.

The Guelf army marched on Siena with the gay
gonfalons of the trainbands fluttering over each
company and the great red and white banner of
Florence flying at the flagstaff of the carroccio;
everybody felt confident of victory.

In Siena there was much alarm. Within the

FLOKENCE 437

duomo the clergy, led by the bishop, barefoot,
walked round in solemn procession, singing hymns
and praying that as God had been pleased to deliver
Nineveh through the fasting and prayer of her
people, so might He now be pleased to deliver Siena
from the malignant wrath of the Florentines. And
outside, through the city streets, the head of the
council, the venerable Buonaguida, barefoot, bare-
headed and in his shirt, led a great crowd to the
duomo, saying : " Virgin Mary, aid us in our great
need and rescue us from the paw of these lions that
seek to devour us." At the door the bishop met
Buonaguida, and the two marched in front of the
procession to the altar of the Virgin, where they
knelt and prayed. Buonaguida prostrated himself
at full length and said : " Virgin, glorious queen
of heaven, mother of sinners, I a miserable sinner
give, grant and enfeoff thee with this city of Siena
and its territory; and I pray thee, sweetest mother,
that it may please thee to accept it, although our
frailty is great and our sins are many. Consider not
our offences. Guard the city, I beseech thee. Defend
and save her from the hands of the perfidious Flor-
entine hounds, and from all who would oppress her
or subject her to suffering and ruin." The bishop
then mounted the pulpit and preached a most beau-
tiful sermon, admonishing the people by good ex-
amples; and he begged and commanded that all
should embrace one another, forgive all injuries, go
to confession, take communion, and all be good
friends, and that they commend the city to the
protection of the saints.

438 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

When the bishop had finished his discourse, the
crowd fell into line, — the crucifix at the head, a
band of monks, the cross of the duomo, a company
of priests, the red banner, the bishop barefoot and
Buonaguida in his shirt, the canons of the duomo
barefoot and bareheaded, a multitude of women also
barefoot, many with their hair dishevelled, — and
so the procession wound through the city, all sing-
ing hymns or repeating paternosters. Other means
were not neglected. A very rich banker, Messer
Salimbene dei Salimbeni, lent 118,000 gold florins
to the state without interest, in order to enable it to
pay the soldiers. He brought the money on a cart
covered with scarlet and decked with olive branches.
Attempts also were made, not without success, to
stir up treason in the Guelf army. The German mer-
cenaries were given double pay and bidden make
mince meat of the malignant Florentines; the
Italian troops were marshalled and harangued ; all
feasted upon many kinds of roast dishes and excel-
lent sweets, and drank good wines most abundantly.
Thus fortified, in the name of God, of the Virgin
Mary and of St. George they marched to the fray.

The Florentine army had halted four or five
miles east of Siena, near the heights of Montaperti
and not far from the river Arbia. The stories of the
battle disagree. The victors ascribe the victory to
their valour and to that of their allies; the van-
quished attribute it to the defection of their own
men. According to Villani, as the Sienese drew near,
many men of Ghibelline sympathies in the Floren-
tine army, both horse and foot, went over to join

FLORENCE 439

them ; and at the onset, when the German cavalry
were charging, some of the Florentines, Ghibellines
at heart, turned traitors and one of them, Bocca
degli Abati, smote off the hand of the horseman
who was carrying the banner; the banner fell, no
man knew whom to trust, all was confusion. The
Florentine cavalry fled first; the foot-soldiers fol-
lowed. The rout was complete; the slaughter was
so great that the Arbia ran red with blood. Florence
lost " the flower of her youth," and her allies were
scattered far and wide. No attempt was made to
defend the city ; the exiles returned triumphantly,
and established their own government with Count
Guido Novello (a kinsman of Guido Guerra) as po-
desta on behalf of King Manfred. The Ghibelline
chiefs held a council of war, and all were of the
opinion that Florence, their arch enemy, should be
razed to the ground, excepting only Farinata degli
Uberti, who said that he would defend her with his
sword, even if he had to fight alone (Inf. x, 91-
93): —

" Ma fu' io sol colk, dove sofferto

fu per ciascuno di torre via Fiorenza,
colui che la difesi a viso aperto."

But I was the only man there, where it was agreed
By every one to do away with Florence,
Who defended her openly face to face.

By his opposition the city was saved, but she was
obliged to give up her conquests ; and all Tuscany,
even Lucca, became subject to Ghibelline dominion.
King Manfred's star was in the ascendant. Uberto
Pelavicini and Buoso da Dovara upheld his cause in

440 ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

tbe north j his daughter Constance married Prince
Peter of Aragon ; the rival candidates for the
Empire, Richard of Cornwall and Alphonso of Cas-
tile did nothing to assert their titles ; Corradino was
still a little boy, too young to set up any claim to
the Sicilian crown ; the King of England was so busy
with his rebellious barons that he had no thought
or means to spare for the furtherance of his son
Edmund's claim ; and Pope Alexander IV was a mild
old man of small danger to anybody. Turn in what
direction he would King Manfred found the sky
blue and cloudless. He hunted with his hounds, he
followed his hawks, he smiled -his winning smile at
many a lovely lady, he wrote sonnets, and in the cool
of day he rode out into the country with his Sicilian
minstrels, singing canzoni and strambotti. Like his
father he encouraged the things of the mind. Clad
always in green, with his fair hair and his merry
blue eyes, he was in his epicurean way as charming
a person as any in Europe, excepting only the noble,
religious, King Louis of France. These two, even in
their charm, were as unlike as men can be; in their
youth, while the gay Italian boy was singing his
songs to the ladies of Apulia, with dusky Saracens
on guard at the castle gates, King Louis was sacri-
ficing health, wealth and the lives of innumerable
Frenchmen in the deserts of Egypt to the glory of
God. And destiny, or rather the Church, dealt a
poetical judgment of her own kind to each. Manfred
she cursed, dethroned, and hounded to death ; Louis
she blessed and canonized.

END OF VOLUME I

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